Before you begin

Before we can write an application program to issue WebSphere MQ commands, you must be familiar with:

1. Issuing WebSphere MQ commands and the command syntax. See WebSphere MQ Script (MQSC) Command Reference or WebSphere MQ Programmable Command Formats and Administration Interface for more information.

2. Writing application programs that use the MQI.

   This includes:

   • Connecting to a queue manager using the MQCONN or MQCONNX call.

   • Opening a queue using MQOPEN.

   • Opening a dynamic queue using MQOPEN and specifying the name of a model queue.

   • Putting messages on a queue using MQPUT and MQPUT1.

   • Getting messages from a queue using MQGET.

   You need to know about messages, including:

   • The message descriptor structure.

   • What the persistence attribute of a message means.

   • The types of WebSphere MQ messages, in particular, request messages and the reply messages they generate.

   We can find all this information in the WebSphere MQ Application Programming Guide and the WebSphere MQ Application Programming Reference manual.

3. User messages.

   These messages are generated by WebSphere MQ to show the success or failure of, and the responses to, WebSphere MQ commands. Each message is identified by an ID that contains the characters CSQ, for example, CSQN205I. For more information, see the WebSphere MQ for z/OS Messages and Codes manual.

If you want your WebSphere MQ commands to be run on a remote queue manager, see the WebSphere MQ Intercommunication manual for details of how to do this.

WebSphere MQ can also be set up to perform security checks, for example, to ensure that a user is authorized to issue a particular command for a particular resource. For more information, see the WebSphere MQ for z/OS System Setup Guide.