Is it possible that Dispatch could convert reports from ASCII to EBCDIC format?

Products

• Dispatch Output Mgmt

Issue/Introduction

We are receiving some APK422S code 310 "File format not valid" errors when running Dispatch output through ACIF and loading it up to our CMOD Content Manager.

Is it possible that Dispatch could convert reports from ASCII to EBCDIC format and that is what is causing the invalid format errors?

Environment

Release : 11.7

Component : Dispatch

Resolution

- The ONLY data Dispatch would "convert" would be a PC DOWNLOAD report. We would convert it from Mainframe EBCIDIC and write it to the PC as ASCII. 

- We would NEVER "convert" ASCII to EBCIDIC.

- If a report comes into Dispatch on the MAINFRAME as ASCII, Dispatch will write that report data out to JES as well as store it on it's database (OLV & ARCHIVE) as ASCII.

- The above being said, that applies to the "REPORT DATA" only!

- If/when Dispatch writes it's BANNER & SEPARATOR PAGES out to JES, it always writes the those pages out as EBCIDIC, since EBCIDIC is the mainframe standard format.

- Consequently, if we write an ASCII report out to JES, and that report or bundle has banner or separator pages on it, you will have a MIXED format dataset that contains both ASCII and EBCIDIC data. In this instance, this type of dataset could cause invalid format errors. 

* Note *

You can suppress the Dispatch generated banner pages at the report recipient level, on the VRDMU130 screen, via specification of zeros '0' in the "Maildrop Pages" , "Recipient Pages" and "Manifest Copies" fields on this screen.