Description of CPHOST

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The CP1HOST package is an improved version of CP1STLVL, the author of the original program and documentation is by Tim Greer.

Shimon Lebowitz applied some changes to the first version of Tim's package. I, Kris Buelens, reworked them to fit them in Tim's version for z/VM 5.2.
As Tim lacks time to incorporate them in his version, he agreed that we make the improved version available on the download lib.

Overview

Two main changes can attract you
  1. The response of the first level CP can be placed in a buffer at the second-level. That is, you can grab the response using PIPE, EXECIO or Rexx's DIAG(8) function.
  2. The return code of the first level CP becomes the returncode of the second-level command. Two special return ranges are available:
        - 30000+x for "logic errors" in the call to CPHOST:
                x=4: No cmd supplied;
                x=8: Not running second level;
                x=12: Command string longer than 240 characters
        - 31000+x for "Response too long" for response buffer (4000 bytes)
                x= The RC of the CP command.
    

Changes

Modifications in 1.1 (March 2007)

The code was compiled for z/VM 5.3 too.  The surrounding execs recognize both z/VM 5.2 and z/VM 5.3.

Modifications in 1.2 (August 2010)

Shimon Lebowitz made again two improvements:

  • avoid problems when CP response is larger than 4K
    (this problem caused a HTT001 hard abend of the secondlevel VM system)
  • it is also made more reentrant
The new code was compiled for z/VM 5.3, 5.4 and 6.1

Modifications in 1.3 (March 2013)

The code was compiled for z/VM 6.2 and the test execs improved a bit.

Modifications in 1.4 (Nov 2014)

The code was compiled for z/VM 6.3 by Ray Mansell and tested by Frank M. Ramaekers Jr.