Trace information
HCL Workload Automation for Z maintains an internal trace to make it possible to see the order that its modules have been invoked in prior to an abend. The trace is wraparound with an end mark after the last trace entry added. Each entry consists of two 8-byte character fields: the module name field and the reason field. The end mark consists of a string of 16 asterisks (X'5C'). For most abnormal terminations, a trace table is written in the diagnostic file (EQQDUMP). These trace entries are intended to be used by the staff when they are diagnosing HCL Workload Automation for Z problems.
A trace entry with reason PROLOG is added on entry to
the module. Similarly, an entry with EPILOG is added at exit from
the module. When trace entries are added for other reasons, the reason
is provided in the reason field. When the dump is online, in machine
readable format, the trace table can normally be found by scanning
the dump and searching for the strings PROLOG or EPILOG.
There are several trace tables in the dump; one for each HCL Workload Automation for Z task.
- If the dump was produced by a user abend (3900 or 3999), the address
of the BIB is found by looking at offset X'4' of the area
that register 13 points to. This offset contains a pointer to another
area where the address of the BIB is found at offset X'48'.
The BIB block is easy to identify because its first characters hold
the string
BIB. - If the dump was produced by any other abend, register 13 points directly to an area where the address of the BIB is found at offset X'48'.
The address of the trace table is found at offset X'440' in the BIB, and the address of the end mark of the trace is found at offset X'448'.