Converting EBCDIC Binary data type to ASCII

patonp · Post by **patonp** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:13 am

Hi Folks,

I've searched the forum about this, and although there are lots of mentions of binary data conversions, none appears to capture my specific case.

I am reading a stream of EBCDIC data as VarBinary. I know that at a pre-defined position and length (i.e. REC_IN[11,4]), there is data that would be defined as a binary datatype if I were to split the file using a CFF. I would like to convert this data to ASCII numeric or varchar.

What function(s) can I use to perform this?

Thanks!

Peter

meena · Post by **meena** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:25 am

Hi,
It looks like decimal datatype at CFF ( for : REC_IN[11,4]), ). If it is decimal you can use "DecimalToString" (for Varchar data type).

I am reading a stream of EBCDIC data as VarBinary. I know that at a pre-defined position and length (i.e. REC_IN[11,4]), there is data that would be defined as a binary datatype if I were to split the file using a CFF. I would like to convert this data to ASCII numeric or varchar.

ArndW · Post by **ArndW** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:43 am

You can use the SDK functions that convert binary COBOL datatypes to do this. Do you know what sort of binary data you have?

patonp · Post by **patonp** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:00 am

ArndW wrote:You can use the SDK functions that convert binary COBOL datatypes to do this. Do you know what sort of binary data you have?

We seem to be thinking along similar lines. As a matter of fact, I've used the DataTypePicComp function to successfully read packed data, and I was hoping that there would be a similar function for binary data.

I'm not certain specifically which type of binary data I have, although when I read the file using a CFF stage, it comes through correctly. Does that tell us anything about the nature of the binary data?

ArndW · Post by **ArndW** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:47 am

In that case it is probably unsigned COMP-3, but I'm just guessing. If you could post the HEX values plus the correct numeric representation I could tell you, though.

ratikmishra1 · Post by **ratikmishra1** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 1:14 pm

Typically comp is binary for integer. Try using "DataTypePicComp". In version 6.0 it used to work only for int types (max 4 bytes). May be the limitation is still there. If your input is 8 bytes long you might consider using "DataTypePicComp2".

patonp · Post by **patonp** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 2:18 pm

Thanks folks! You were absolutely correct - DataTypePicComp did exactly what I needed.