ABEND is used to intentionally terminate a transaction or program abnormally due to an error or unexpected situation. CICS automatically releases the main storage associated with the task that has been terminated.

Key Features -

• Terminates the current transaction immediately when an unexpected condition occurs or forcefully.
• Optionally provides a unique abend code for debugging.
• Allows rollback of uncommitted database updates (if recovery is enabled).
• Generates an entry in the CICS dump table for analysis.

The following message is sent to CEEMSG, followed by a dump report if an abend occurs - "CEE3250C An abend XXXX has occurred. XXXX specifies the transaction dump code using the ABCODE option".

Syntax -

EXEC CICS ABEND
     ABCODE(abend-code)
     [NODUMP]
	 [CANCEL]
     [RESP(response-field)]
     [RESP2(response-field2)]
     END-EXEC.

• ABCODE(abend-code) - Specifies the four-character abend code to identify the reason for abnormal termination.
• NODUMP - Prevents CICS from taking a transaction dump (used when debugging is not required).
• CANCEL - An ABEND CANCEL command cancels all exits at any task level and terminates the task abnormally.
• RESP(response-variable) - Optional. It captures the response code of the ABEND operation and used to check if the command executed successfully or encountered an error.
• RESP2(response2-variable) - Optional. It captures the response2 code of the ABEND operation when the error occured.

Short Examples -

Scenario1 - Using ABEND with an Error Code.

...
PROCEDURE DIVISION.

    EXEC CICS LINK ...
         END-EXEC.

    IF WS-RESP NOT = 0 THEN
        EXEC CICS ABEND
             ABCODE('ERR1')
             END-EXEC 
	END-IF.

    EXEC CICS RETURN
        END-EXEC.

When LINK command return code is not successful, then the program abended with ERR1 abend code.

Scenario2 - Using ABEND with NODUMP.

...
PROCEDURE DIVISION.

    EXEC CICS ...
         END-EXEC.

    IF WS-RESP NOT = 0 THEN
        EXEC CICS ABEND
             ABCODE('FAIL')
             NODUMP
             END-EXEC 
	END-IF.

    EXEC CICS RETURN
        END-EXEC.

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