TS/MP 2.5 Pathsend and Server Programming Manual

• The Pathsend procedure calls
• The RSC/MP product, with or without the POET
• The GDSX product
In Table 3 (page 35), key technical and business considerations are mapped to each way of
accessing Pathway servers. More information about each approach is provided after the table.
Table 3 Considerations for Requestor Programs
Support
for
TMF
Support
Fault
Tolerance
Ease of
Development
High
Performance
Multi-
Threading
Capability
Support for
Intelligent
Devices
Large
Number of
I/O Devices
Server
Access
Approach
Context
Sensitivity
XXXXXTCP
XXXXXXTCP with
IDS
XXXXPathsend
XXXXXXRSC/MP or
POET
XXXXXXGDSX
SCREEN COBOL Requestors
Screen programs for Pathway terminals perform a variety of front-end functions for your Pathway
application and are typically written as single-threaded programs in the SCREEN COBOL language.
This language offers a simple programming environment and screen-management system to drive
NonStop terminals and IBM 3270 terminals. SCREEN COBOL supports both conversational mode
(for either block-mode or conversational-mode terminals) and intelligent mode (for intelligent devices
and communications lines).
When you write a screen program in SCREEN COBOL, you can take advantage of the features
of the Pathway/iTS TCP. As supplied by HP, the TCP supports:
• Fault tolerance
• TMF transactions
• Multitasking of single-threaded screen programs
• Access to server processes with Pathway server-classes
• Unsolicited-message processing (UMP)
• System management interfaces (that is, PATHCOM or the Pathway management programming
interface)
SCREEN COBOL requestor programs do not perform any file I/O operations except to terminals
and server-classes. A file I/O operation to a server-class, which is in the form of a request message,
is initiated by the requestor program by using the SCREEN COBOL SEND statement.
For information about designing and coding SCREEN COBOL requestors, see the Pathway/iTS
TCP and Terminal Programming Guide.
IDS Requestors
Standard SCREEN COBOL requestors are screen oriented; they send data back and forth between
the Working-Storage Section of the program and a terminal’s display screen by way of screen
templates defined in the Screen Section. Standard SCREEN COBOL requestors use SCREEN COBOL
ACCEPT and DISPLAY statements in the Procedure Division to interact with display terminals.
Designing Requestor Programs 35