Is there a command that will help me locate a file in a CICS region easily?

file XXXX is in.

At times one of the production batch jobs is unable to close and/or open a file. When I check the JCL to see which region the file is in and I log on to that region and enter ' cemt I file (xxxx) ' the file is not there, so I have to start going through each of the regions to find my file. Sometimes I get lucky and find it in one of the first 5 regions that I check, and sometimes not so lucky.

So, Is there a magic command that I can enter that would locate that file no matter in which region it's in instead of me having to change the prefix of my command '??MT I FILE (XXXX) '.

This was a VERY interesting question, and I'm going to go through my
thought process for your (no doubt) interest and delectation.

My 1st idea was to run some sort of extract against the CSD and get the
Connection and File definitions, compile them into a program and manipulate
from there. I rejected this idea as it would not give a guarenteed layout
of what files were actually where (as you could dynamically install them).

A bit of a refinement was to have a PLT program which did the scanning for
the files and dumped the info into a shared TSQ from where it could be
read. This again falls down on the installation problem, so one would have
to use CICS exits to note additions and deletions. This was not an
appealing issue.

So I came down to a dynamic bit of code which could be executed from within
CICS and also from MVS.

What you need to do is code up a demon-like utility program and put it in
all of your regions. This should perform the following functions
 LIST -> extract all known files in the region together with open/closed (&
the ings)  enabled/disabled (& the ings) local/sysid
INQ -> return this info for a specific file
SET -> set the file status to be open/closed enabled/disabled

This program should use the File Control SPI to do the browse (for LIST) or
run the specific XC INQUIRE or SET actions verbs as appropiate.

The commarea would look something like

COMMAND                         CL8   (LIST,INQ,SET)
SYSID                           CL4   (SYSID of executing region, set by
caller and not touched)
SPECIFIC FILE                   CL8   (for INQ/SET)
SPECIFIC  FILE OPEN/CLOSED      AL4   (the CVDA)
SPECIFIC FILE ENABLED/DISDABLED AL4   (the CVDA)
NUMBER OF RETURNED FILES        F     (for LIST)
   Repeating for each file
FILE                   CL8
FILE OPEN/CLOSED       AL4 (the CVDA)
FILE ENABLED/DISDABLED AL4 (the CVDA)
SYSID                  CL4 (or local if X'00000000')


Then write another program  which manages things.

It initially calls the utility prog in LIST mode for all regions.  You end
up with a list of files in both the local region and all remote regions.
Then do some user interaction to select a file in an interested region, and
XC LINK SYSID(x) the utility program with a SET on the file : this gets
routed to the relevant region for execution. On return ship an INQ request
to see that the status has changed.

If you are clever, you can use the returned info from the LIST to construct
a sequence of operations which stop access to the file in remote regions
before actually closing it in the region where it physically resides.

Even better, as all the work is being done by the utility program, you can
run this is batch (see one of my SupportPacs which supplies codes to do
this in JCL or a MVS Pipe) and stop access to your CICS files if offline
operation is required or you have some sort of extermal monitor/operations
tool.