Querying XML from an application

You can write an application program to query a fragment of XML before transforming it into application data.

About this task

If your application is going to process many different types of XML, you might want to query the XML to determine which XMLTRANSFORM resource to use to transform it to application data. This command might also be useful if your XML contains <xsd:any> elements.

Procedure

In your application program, use the TRANSFORM XMLTODATA API command to query the XML:
```
EXEC CICS TRANSFORM XMLTODATA
     CHANNEL('MyChannelName')
     XMLCONTAINER('SourceContainerName')
     ELEMNAME(elementName) ELEMNAMELEN(elementNameLength)
```
You must specify the name of the channel and the name of the container that holds the XML. You do not have to specify an XMLTRANSFORM resource to query the XML. The above example queries the name of the first XML element and the length of the XML element. You can also query the type of the first XML element, the length of the type, and the namespace of the type.
Optional: If the application requires the namespace of the XML element, provide a data-area in which CICS can write the ELEMNS value.
Optional: After querying the XML, you can write application logic to determine which XMLTRANSFORM resource to use to transform the XML to application data.
Install the application program in CICS.

Results

CICS reads the specified container and returns the information about the XML element to the application program.