Description
Using a COBOL program as a TCPIP client or Server between IDMS on the mainframe and some other platform that supports UNICODE or ASCII may require the COBOL program to be able to convert between EBCDIC and UNICODE and also between EBCDIC and ASCII.
Solution
This conversion between these character sets can be done in COBOL but an easier solution is to call an Assembler routine from COBOL to do this conversion. Save the CODECONV attachment which is the Assembled object to your PC and upload it to the mainframe with LRECL=80 in binary mode with CRLF not selected.
Use the link JCL below to link the CODECONV object. Assign the physical sequential dataset containing the OBJECT to the CONVOBJ DD.
//LINKSTEP EXEC PGM=IEWL, // PARM='LET,MAP,LIST,NCAL,SIZE=(524288,65536),RENT,REUS,REFR' //SYSLMOD DD DSN=IDMS.LOADLIB,DISP=SHR //CONVOBJ DD DSN=CODECONV.OBJECT,DISP=SHR //SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=* //SYSLIN DD * INCLUDE CONVOBJ ENTRY CODECONV NAME CODECONV(R) /*
Define this program to the SYSGEN using the following program statement then generate it:
ADD PROGRAM CODECONV CONCURRENT NODYNAMIC DUMP THRESHOLD IS 0 ENABLED ERROR THRESHOLD IS 5 ISA SIZE IS 0 LANGUAGE IS ASSEMBLER MPMODE IS SYSTEM NOMAINLINE MULTIPLE ENCLAVE IS ON NEW COPY IS ENABLED OVERLAYABLE PROGRAM PROTECT REENTRANT RESIDENT REUSABLE SAVEAREA .
This utility takes four parameters.
Length: A PIC 9(8) COMP field which is the number of bytes to be converted.
Type of conversion: A PIC X(2) field which indicates the type of conversion, that is, EA for EBCDIC to ASCII, AE for ASCII to EBCDIC, EU for EBCDIC to Unicode and UE for Unicode to EBCDIC.
Input field: A PIC X(N) field that contains to input of length N. This field can contain EBCDIC, ASCII or Unicode.
Output field: A PIC X(N)field for the converted output.
The length should not exceed the size of the input or output fields.
The call from COBOL to this program can be dynamic or static. The example of the code below is for a dynamic call which does not require the program to be linked with the user COBOL program that could be used as a client or server. Example: 01 SUBROUTINE-NAME PIC X(8) VALUE 'CODECONV'.
01 CTRLSIZE PIC 9(8) COMP. 01 CTRLTYPE PIC X(2). 01 INPUT-FIELD PIC X(80). 01 OUTPUT-FIELD PIC X(80). MOVE 80 TO CTRLSIZE. MOVE 'EU' TO CTRLTYPE. CALL SUBROUTINE-NAME USING CTRLSIZE, CTRLTYPE, INPUT-FIELD, OUTPUT-FIELD.
IDMSIN01 can also be called to convert between ASCII and EBCDIC. It does not support conversion between UNICODE and EBCDIC. Refer to the Callable Services Guide 3.4.1 for an example of COBOL calling IDMSIN01.