Establishing Host Sessions › Understanding Console Management › z/VM Consoles › Message Handling for z/VM Consoles › Message Parsing for z/VM Consoles

Message Parsing for z/VM Consoles

As it processes each line on the screen, CA Automation Point analyzes that line to determine where the message ID is and sets environmental variables. CA Automation Point parses messages as follows:

• Secondary Console Image Facility (SCIF) messages

  If the message has a colon (:) in column 9 or 10 and non-blank data in columns 1 through 8, CA Automation Point treats the message as a SCIF message. It also does the following:

  • Places the data in columns 1 through 8 in the &JOBID environmental variable
  • Increments the "beginning of message text" to the first non-blank character past column 10

  In the following sample message, VTAM2 is the value that goes into the &JOBID variable and TIME IS 09:07:25 EDT TUESDAY 10/12/90 is the message text.

  VTAM2    : TIME IS 09:07:25 EDT TUESDAY 10/12/90
  

• CP messages

  If the message has an attribute byte in column 1, CA Automation Point treats the message as a CP message (issued by the MSG or WNG commands). It then searches the message for the strings MSG FROM xxxxxx or WNG FROM xxxxxxxx. If either string is present, it places the value of xxxxxxxx in the &JOBID variable. (If neither string is present, this variable is set to null.) For CP messages, CA Automation Point increments the "beginning of message text" to the first non-blank character after xxxxxxxx.

  In the following sample message, "Intervention-required" is the message ID, and VM3812B is the value that CA Automation Point places in the &JOBID environmental variable.

  MSG FROM VM3812B : Intervention-required on 3812:
  check paper path
  

• Time-stamped messages

  CA Automation Point looks for a time-stamped message to contain a colon in columns 3 and 6 and two-digit numbers beginning at columns 1, 4, and 7. If the message contains these characters, it places the value of the time stamp in the &HOSTTIME environmental variable and treats the next non-blank character string as the message ID. The parsing logic described applies to all z/VM message types.

  The following is a sample time-stamped message. Because the message contains a two-digit number starting in column 1, CA Automation Point places the time stamp in the &HOSTTIME variable and treats HCPCFC003E as the message ID.

  09:02:19 HCPCF003E Invalid option - HILITE
  

• Blank messages

  CA Automation Point ignores messages that contain only blanks or include only a JOBID or HOSTTIME value. For example, CA Automation Point ignores these messages:

  10:34:11
  MSG FROM VM3812B:
  

• All other messages

  Some messages (such as command echoes, most CP command replies, and resource status messages) do not fit into any of the previously described categories. When parsing the messages, CA Automation Point uses the first word as the message ID.

  In the following examples, SEND and LOGON/JOB are the message IDs:

  SEND VTAM2 Q T
  LOGON/JOB INITIATION - INVALID PASSWORD