The CICS® transaction dump is generated to the DFHDMPA or DFHDMPB data set. The offline CICS dump utility routine converts the transaction dump into formatted, understandable output.
The CICS transaction dump contains information for the storage areas and resources associated with the current transaction. This information includes the Communication Area (COMMAREA), Transaction Work Area (TWA), Exec Interface Block (EIB), and any storage obtained by the CICS EXEC commands. This information does not appear in the Language Environment dump. It can be helpful to use the CICS transaction dump with the Language Environment dump to locate problems when operating under CICS.
When the location of an error is uncertain, it can be helpful to insert EXEC CICS DUMP statements in and around the code suspected of causing the problem. This generates CICS transaction dumps close to the error for debugging reference.
For information about interpreting CICS dumps, see CICS Problem Determination Guide.