COBOL considerations

A user-written condition handler registered for a routine using the CEEHDLR service cannot be translated using the CICS® translator and therefore cannot contain any EXEC CICS commands. This is because the CICS translator inserts (onto the PROCEDURE DIVISION header of the COBOL program) the arguments EXEC Interface Block (EIB) and COMMAREA, which do not match arguments passed by Language Environment.

However, a user-written condition handler can call a subroutine to perform EXEC CICS commands. If arguments need to be passed to this subroutine, they should be preceded by two dummy arguments in the caller. The called subroutine must issue EXEC CICS ADDRESS EIB before executing any other EXEC CICS commands.