The capture specification defines the place in a CICS application where a particular event can be captured; for example, an EXEC CICS READ FILE command of a file where the record key has a particular value.
An application analyst takes a defined business event and converts it to one or more capture specifications using the CICS® event binding editor.
The places in a CICS application that can be enabled as capture points consist of a number of the EXEC CICS API commands, and program initiation. The EXEC CICS commands that can be specified as a capture point are as follows:
The capture specification further refines the criteria for event emission by using filter data, such as the transaction ID or program name. The capture specification defines the location of the data that is used to filter the event, and the data to be captured.
For example, the field name of an order value must be greater than 10 000. The location can be a field in a COMMAREA, a container, or a 3270 datastream. The capture specification defines the location of the data to be emitted with the event. The data item can also be specified in a filter predicate, so the event is emitted only if the value exceeds 10 000.
A capture specification consists of the capture point, such as an EXEC CICS API command, relating to the event, and some filter predicates that give more precision about the exact location or locations where the event occurs. The location of the event in the application logic depends on how it is specified. If a CICS application contains two instances of the same EXEC CICS API command, and the filter specification does not distinguish between the two commands, an event is emitted when both commands are issued.