TRANSFER Reference Manual

1 Programmatic Interface to the
TRANSFER Delivery System
069139, Update 1 to 40969 Tandem Computers Incorporated 1–1
There are two types of TRANSFER processes that interface with your programs:
The TRANSFER interactive server, TISERV, that can start and terminate sessions,
perform item and package handling requests, and handle administrative requests.
Your client can request services and receive responses from TISERV.
The TRANSFER asynchronous requesters, TAREQs, that notify selected agents
when a package arrives at a depot. Your agent can receive notification messages
from TAREQs and perform additional processing as needed.
Both types of TRANSFER processes accept messages in a specific format. TISERV
expects an interprocess communication (IPC) message with header information and
one or more requests for units of work (UOWs). TAREQ generates messages in a
standard format. Your agent must acknowledge the notification in a standard format.
This section presents the format for messages to TISERV and TAREQs. The discussion
includes a summary of TISERV UOWs grouped by operation.
This manual does not describe TRANSFER functionality in detail. For additional
information about UOWs and the programmatic interface to TISERV and TAREQs,
refer to the TRANSFER Programming Guide .
TISERV Interface Processes request services from TISERV through IPC requests. Each request contains
the following data:
An IPC header that identifies the session that originated the request and provides
space for TISERV reply and return codes.
One or more UOWs, each of which includes a UOW header and the parameters for
a specific TISERV request .
The TISERV reply is written in the same format as the corresponding request, and
consists of:
An IPC header with reply and return codes supplied by TISERV.
One or more response UOWs that return requested data to the correspondent.
UOW syntax is described in Section 2.
IPC Request and Reply
Headers
The format for IPC headers is the same for all requests and replies. Within an
application program, these headers are defined together. Your application must
establish values for IPC header fields that are transmitted in the request.