How to create a bms map field within a cics program, can it be done?

[edge55]

I'm in a situation where I need to send lines of data on a screen but the lines can be formatted in different ways. I need to have the flexibility of changing the line structure (number of fields) depending on the line type being displayed.
How can I create fields on a bms map within a cics (containing cobol) program and then send the map. It would be easy enough to create the symbolic map but how will the physical side of the map be created since we do not know how map fields will be on each line of the map until the program is being executed.

 

[julyvishal]

you don't need a map to do this, you can just use plain 'send' and 'receive' cics commands; the message starts at position (1,1); however you will need to standardize the message format, since it is variable-length yet has a message type - based on the message type you can anticipate the kind of data you will receive. you could use delimiters, and/or set positional standards (e.g. the first field will be a variable-length empno, followed by a space or two or ampersand, followed by the variable-length last name, etc.). these are easily coded in a cobol program.