Possible to transfer ASCII file from IFS to mainframe?
Steve has a question about transfering an ASCII file from the IFS to a mainframe.
He writes, "I'm being told that I can't transfer an ASCII file from AS/400 IFS to our mainframe. It transfers OK using Connect:Direct, but the file is unreadable. I can quite happily read the file on the IFS from my NT workstation.
"Is it not industry standard practice to transfer files from the IFS to a mainframe? If so, what sort of translation needs to take place to make it readable on the mainframe?"
What do you think? Is it possible to transfer the file?
-- Michelle Davidson, editor, Search400.com
Software/Hardware used:
Software/Hardware used:
ASKED:
October 17, 2005 9:17 PM
UPDATED:
November 15, 2009 11:59 AM
Answer Wiki:
what do you means when writing unreadable ? unopenable ? mis-translation between ascii and ebcdic ?
It is correct in your workstation : it can be in ascii or in ansi (first 127 chars are commun, need accentuated chars to distinguish)
Look at the CCSID of your file with WRKLNK.
Look inside your file with WRKLNK.
All correct ?
Send your file with FTP, in ASCII TEXT MODE.
does this change something ?
Try to convert to EBCDIC in your 400 (in the correct CCSID)
then send it binary to the mainframe.
Some changes ?
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Hi,
Some pointers (items that gave me trouble in the past):
1. Watch out for the ‘coded character set id’ of the IFS object on your AS/400. This translation have given me more problems than anything else.
2. Try specifying BIN in the FTP input script file (or in the scripts of an interactive FTP session)
3. Watch out for the naming format – NA 1 to address objects in the IFS, NA 0 for objects in the library file system
Currently I don’t have a mainframe available so cannot test.
Best of luck.
You should be able to send files from the iSeries to Mainframe using Connect:Direct. You can do it via the use of XTRAN on the SYSOPTS options of the CDSND command.
Sterling Commerce provide some example XTRAN Tables that can be used, or you can create your own (Good luck!).
They are a heavy read but I find the following manuals very good points of reference….
C:D Process Guide – Midrange Systems
C:D Process Guide – Mainframe Systems
Both are available at http://www.sterlingcommerce.com/Products/AllProducts/Connect/direct.htm
try opening the file in excel, then save the file in .csv format, then transfer the csv file up to the system.
You have said nothing about how you’re trying to do the transfer. Most likely should be FTP, but that shouldn’t be a problem unless there are CCSID translation problems. Reading the file from a PC tells us nothing. We don’t know the file extension nor your NetServer settings, so we don’t know if auto-translation is done. You didn’t tell us your system QCCSID value (probably 65535 which would be the normal cause of translation problems). You didn’t tell us the CCSID attribute of the file nor anything about how data was written to it. You didn’t tell us your job CCSID setting.
You mostly told us nothing useful that we could use to help. What kind of answer can we give?
Tom