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  Asked: Jul 27 2005   4:57 AM GMT
  Asked by: Wadoman

Mainframe Datasets & EBCDIC codepages


DataCenter, Tech support, Development, Storage, IBM, Storage products and equipment, Disk drives, Storage management, Special-purpose software

Hi all,

I am 'stuck' & would appreciate some of your time to consider my question below please.......

We have some in-house written software which converts data from ASCII to EBCDIC & visa-versa (amongst other functions...)

One of our marketing agencies have recently started using a process (on advice from IBM) on the AS400 whereby they are able to pre-allocate a dataset specifying an EBCDIC codepage, and then FTP their ASCII formatted data from a mailbox directly into it. The data is then automatically converted from ASCII to the correct EBCDIC codepage and all special characters remain intact & have the correct hex values for the given market / language.
This of course, alleviates the necessity for any character conversion software?...

Do you know whether the mainframe has the same ability as the AS400 whereby I could pre-allocate a dataset with a specific EBCDIC codepage, prior to populating it with ASCII formatted data please?..? If so, how can I specify this codepage when creating the mainframe EBCDIC dataset? (I haven't found anything useful in any JCL manuals....)
(We are running under Z/OS v3.3)

I hope someone has an a definitive answer to this & look forward to your replies.
Many thanks for any assistance - it is much appreciated.

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Last Answered: Jul 27 2005  8:52 AM GMT  by z9ba01




Yes, this can be done.

See the communication server bookshelf and search on "codepage"

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/Shelves/F1A1BK33

2.8.120 FTP code page conversion

Code page conversion must be performed for:


FTP commands and replies sent over the control connection

Data transferred over the data connection




| FTP uses the iconv function to establish ASCII-to-EBCDIC and
| EBCDIC-to-ASCII translate tables for the control connection. The default
| network transfer codepage for the control connection is 7-bit ASCII. In
| addition, FTP maintains support for the use of translate tables by the
| CONVXLAT utility. After an end user has logged in, a SITE subcommand can
| be used to change the code page being used on the control connection.
FTP uses the iconv function to establish network transfer to file system and file system to network transfer translate tables for the data connection. In addition, FTP maintains support for the use of translate tables by the CONVXLAT utility.

Note: Using iconv conversion to retrieve EBCDIC data that was created with CONVXLAT-generated conversion tables could result in data corruption due to possible conversion table differences.

After an end user has logged in, a SITE subcommand can be used to change the translation tables being used for single byte translation.



Subtopics:

2.8.120.1 Code page conversions for the control connection
2.8.120.2 Code page conversions for the data connection

Scott
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djlsky  |   Jul 27 2005  9:21AM GMT

I recommend you look at the MS Host Integration Server 2004 which is designed for access to mainframes (non NT Based systems). HIS2004 can handle the translation from ASCII to EBCDIC and back without the need for preprocessing the EBCDIC stream with your translator. In addition HIS2004 implements SSL (via COM) which is SOX compliant (FTP is not SOX compliant unless you are encrypting the DataStream). Although the docs I have seen do not specifically address z/OS they do reference OS390 which z/OS was derived from.

You can find more info here: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/hiserver/default.mspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.microsoft.com/hiserver/default.mspx</a>

and Here: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/host/reskit/part2/hisrkc04.mspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/host/reskit/part2/hisrkc04.mspx</a>

specifics on EBCDIC translation here: <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/his/htm/_sna_ebcdic_code_page_support_using_the_odbc_driver_for_db2_oledb.asp" rel="nofollow">http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/his/htm/_sna_ebcdic_code_page_support_using_the_odbc_driver_for_db2_oledb.asp</a>

As usual MS documentation is clear as mud but the good news is they do offering trial software for you to test with.

IBM MQseries gives you bi directional access between mainframes and Intel based systems (and their related network protocols) but will not handle translation (ditto MSMQ). Both basically only setup communication paths that homogenize network protocols.

Sounds like you are pretty close to the trees so you may want to step back and ask “what will I need next?” so you don’t end up patching patches. Instead plan and build a flexable system that will meet your future and current needs.

Good luck. djl