Suggestions for working with mixed CCSIDs (37 and 13488 - UCS-2)

[Dave Murvin <davem@xxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I have a situation at a client shop where they are converting to a 
new system that uses double byte graphic fields (CCSID 13488 - UCS-2) 
for all the character fields.   They would like to be able to join 
queries to the old data base which uses regular character fields 
(CCSID 37 - English).   For now, the CCSID 13488 data base runs on 
V5R4 and the CCSID 37 database runs on V5R2.  After conversion, the 
V5R2 database will be copied to the V5R4 machine for historical purposes.

Working with the UCS-2 fields is kind of a pain.  The tools we are 
using, such as wrkdbf, Linoma, and Sequel, do not work with the UCS-2 
fields.  For example, you can not run an sequel query over the CCSID 
37 data base and insert the results into the CCSID13488 data 
base.  The fields will not map.  Likewise, you can not create a join 
logical over two files where the join fields are different CCSIDs.

We have built a logical over one of the CCSID 13488 based data files 
and redefined all the non-numeric fields as character CCSID 
37.  Using this method, we can inquire and change the fields in the 
CCSID 13488 file through our new logical using Linoma.  wrkdbf does 
not seem to be able to handle this method either (it can view the 
data this way, but it does not let us change it because it still sees 
the base UCS-2 field type and we would need to use CCSID 13488 Hex to 
change the field).

From documentation, it looks like you should be able to use CPYF 
*Map to transfer data, and I have done in internally in RPGLE 
programs by defining fields like the CCSID 13488 fields then moving 
the character data to them.  It seems like it will be a royal pain if 
these are the only tools we have.  We do not want to create bunches 
of logicals just so the users can sequel to get their information if 
we don't have to.  It is also a pain for oneze, twoze record changes 
for testing.

I would have thought the CCSIDs would convert automatically.  Is the 
problem conversion versus translation that Bruce mentioned in a post 
in the archives?

Any suggestions out there for better methods or tools that play well 
with this situation?

Thanks


Dave Murvin
DRM Enterprises, Inc.