Special Character in the EXTRACT file created (Fixed Width)

[DSFreddie]

Hi All,

Thanks for looking into this post.

I have an issue which has come just couple of days before the Prodcution Implementation. Pls help me with a resolution.

I am reading the data from DB2 tables & generating an extract.

The extract generated has a SPECIAL CHARACTER in it due to which the downstream system is not able to load the data in their end.

While I open the file in wordpad, I could see the SPECIAL CHARACTER as a BOX (something like this []).

It happens for the fields which I have defined as CHAR. How to resolve this issue? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Freddie

[mhester]

In the administrator client what is the value of the environment variable APT_STRING_PADCHAR? If it is 0x0 then you can have this type of behavior. Set it to 0x20

[DSFreddie]

Thanks Hester for your reply.

I dont have the privilege to login to the Administrator. I will check with the ETL admin tomorrow morning on this option.

In the mean time, Is there any other way in which we can resolve this issue within the DataStage job? (like any option settings/transformation etc?)

Thanks for the replies.

Freddie

[chulett]

Add that $APT environment variable to your job parameters and then override it there to 0x20, which is a space.

Make sure you understand the difference between doing it at the individual job level (affects just that job) and making it at the Project level which will affect all jobs.