The HELP Facility is a special type of message facility. It contains CICAT.PUB.SYS, the default HELP subsystem catalog that provides users with online help for MPE/iX. CICAT.PUB.SYS can be equated to a your HELP file.
HELP catalogs are formatted with the MAKECAT utility and accessed directly by users.
The HELP Facility provides a user interface that allow messages to be accessed very differently from the user's standpoint. The HELP facility interface opens the catalog, reads and outputs messages, and closes the catalog without explicit user operations. The messages are identified without set and message numbers and may not be accessed by user's applications.
Creating your own HELP facility is discussed in Chapter 6.
