Document lifespan

Documents created by an application exist only for the length of the XCICS task in which they are created. This means that when the last program in the XCICS task returns control to XCICS, all documents created during the task's lifetime are deleted. It is the application's responsibility to save a document before terminating if the document is going to be used in another task. You can obtain a copy of the document by using the DOCUMENT RETRIEVE. The application can then save this copy to a location of its choice, such as a temporary storage queue. The copy can then be used to recreate the document.

Documents retrieved with DOCUMENT RETRIEVE, contain control information, that is useful if an application wishes to recreate a copy of the original document.

It is also possible to issue a DOCUMENT RETRIEVE command and ask for the control information to be omitted. Specify the DATAONLY option on the DOCUMENT RETRIEVE command to instruct the Document Handler to return only the data. This is the case when an application needs the text of the document to use it directly (i.e printing, emails, etc.)