DELETEQ TS

The DELETEQ TS command removes a temporary storage queue. It is the clean-up command of temporary storage: without it, your queues stay in storage forever.

Syntax

• The command is short: DELETEQ TS QUEUE(queue-name), with QNAME as the longer-name form.
• QUEUE takes 1 to 8 characters; QNAME takes up to 16 characters on CICS TS 1.3 and later.
• No other options are needed. There is no FROM or INTO because nothing is transferred.

What it deletes

• DELETEQ TS deletes the whole queue, all of its items at once.
• You cannot delete a single record from a queue. If you need that, rewrite the item with spaces or rebuild the queue without it.
• After the delete, the queue name is free again, and the next WRITEQ with that name starts a fresh queue at item 1.
• If the queue you name does not exist, CICS raises the QIDERR condition.

Why deleting matters

• A queue that is never deleted stays in main storage or in the DFHTEMP file indefinitely, wasting space.
• Delete the queue when the business function is done, for example when the user presses PF3 to exit or PF12 to cancel.
• A common pattern: delete the old queue first, then write fresh data, so each run of the transaction starts clean.

Example:-