The causes of errors are not always immediately evident. To diagnose complex errors, you need diagnostics documentation that allows you to establish the status of the system and follow the exact course of the session.
Main-memory dumps and log files are the essential diagnostics documents. In order to receive the necessary documentation in the event of an error, the following BS2000 commands must be included in the sequence of commands for starting the DBH, SESDCN or a SESAM/SQL application:
/MODIFY-TEST-OPTIONS DUMP=YES
The parameter DUMP=YES in the MODIFY-TEST-OPTIONS command causes each dump to be output and a message is issued to SYSOUT./MODIFY-JOB-OPTIONS LOGGING=PARAMETERS(LISTING=YES)
The LOGGING parameter causes the request to be logged to SYSLST.
In special situations SESAM/SQL not only attempts to create a user dump but also attempts to create a system dump as a troubleshooting aid in cases where interaction with BS2000 is involved. In order to enable this additional dump, the user ID must be permitted to set the test privilege READ-PRIVILEGE to a value of ar least 3.
If this is not possible, as an alternative, SESAM/SQL generates a user dump so that at least this diagnostic document exists. However, error diagnosis will continue to be difficult if no system dump is available.
You can use administration statements or commands to request certain diagnostics utilities (see the overview on "Overview of helpful administration statements"). In the following description, administration statements for administration with SESADM are preferred. However, you can of course use the corresponding administration command in ISP format instead of the administration statement described. These administration commands are specified at the end of the descriptions of their equivalent administration statements in the alphabetical reference section of the manual (see overview on "Equivalent administration statements and commands").
The SESAM/SQL monitor SESMON and the SESCOSP request-logging facility also provide information on database operation that can be useful in diagnosing errors (see chapter “Outputting operational data with SESMON” and chapter “Evaluating request logging with SESCOSP”).
BS2000 diagnostic utilities, such as AID, are described in the relevant BS2000 manuals.