A context is an association to a domain. Multicontexting is the ability of a single process to have one of the following:

• More than one connection within a domain
• Connections to more than one domain

Multicontexting can be used in both clients and servers. When used in servers, multicontexting implies the use of multithreading, as well.

For a more complete list of the characteristics of a context, see “Context Attributes” in one of the following sections:

• Writing Code to Enable Multicontexting in an ATMI Client
• Writing Code to Enable Server-Dispatched Multicontexting and Multithreading Threads in an ATMI Server

The Oracle Tuxedo system supports multicontexted applications written in either C or COBOL. Multithreaded applications, however, are supported only in C.

The following figure shows how a multicontexted client process works within a domain. Each arrow represents an outstanding call to a server.