Re: Can I create my own CCSID

[CRPence <CRPbottle@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 07-Nov-2011 08:31 , Loek Maartens wrote:
> Is it possible to define my own CCSID translation table?
>
> In the past I did use the code pages with the QDCXLATE api, but
> now I am faced with UTF-8 ccsid and need to do a translation from
> accented characters (french, german, etc) to simple characters.
>
> Since I can not find a matching CCSID I am looking on building my
> own, but fail to find any references, except some references in
> CICS.

  I believe the desired outcome is possible with existing CCSID 
character string conversion; i.e. without creating your own CCSID.  Look 
at using the iconv() API using "Linguistic conversion. Also known as 
best-fit conversion" such that "Characters that are not in the target 
CCSID are mapped to the most culturally acceptable alternative for that 
character."
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v6r1m0/topic/apis/nls3.htm
"For example, the source CCSID might support an A grave character (Å). 
The target CCSID might not support this character. During the 
conversion, the most linguistically acceptable character (a Latin 
capital A) is substituted for the A grave. After the conversion, 
characters that are not included in the target CCSID are presented to 
the user as the most linguistically acceptable substitution characters. 
This substitution is permanent. Any loss of character integrity is 
permanent.

Through an application programming interface (API), linguistic 
conversion is available from any supported single-byte CCSID to any 
other supported single-byte CCSID."

  The "Code Conversion Allocation (iconv_open()) performs the necessary 
initializations to convert character encodings and returns a conversion 
descriptor of type iconv_t" and includes the capability on the 
"fromcode" string [aka API Format] to specify a 3-byte "Conversion 
alternative" value.
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v6r1m0/topic/apis/iconvopn.htm
"Conversion alternative. The conversion alternative that is selected to 
convert graphic character data. This value is only used on the fromcode 
parameter. The following values can be used:
  000  The IBM®-defined default conversion method and the associated 
conversion tables. Most of the default tables follow the round-trip 
conversion criterion. For the default tables that do not follow the 
round-trip conversion criterion, see the i5/OS® globalization topic 
collection.
  057  The enforced subset match (substitution) criterion. For the 
CCSID conversion pairs that support this criterion, see i5/OS globalization.
  102  The best-fit conversion criterion for character mismatch."

Regards, Chuck