Re: Need some help related to special characters in O-specifications

[Scott Klement <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> The problem here is this is not a fresh code.
> It is a code that is being converted from HP3000 RPGII to IBM RPGIII.
> So, we need to perform an equivalent function on the iSeries side to
> acheive the desired effects.
Since you're converting it anyway, I'd take this opportunity to do it 
right and convert them to externally defined print files.
> What are the possible ways to acheive this?
> All the printer files are program described.
> How can specify the font (or equivalent for any other print escape
> sequences) in program described print files?
You can specify one font that's used for the entire spooled file when you 
create the print file (CRTPRTF).  Or change it with CHGPRTF, or override 
it at runtime with OVRPRTF.  That's all you can do with a 
program-described file.
With an externally defined file, you can switch fonts whenever you like, 
as well as many other capabilities (graphics, barcodes, etc.)  This is the 
better solution in the long run.
If you really MUST keep your file program described, then you have some 
problems to consider:
a) I believe the HP3000 was an ASCII machine.  The iSeries is not, it's 
EBCDIC based, so your code has to output text that will be converted to 
the right escape codes when the EBCDIC to ASCII translation takes place.
b) While in the spool, your program-described output will most likely be 
stored in SCS format.  Since SCS has it's own system of escape codes, the 
system will probably strip out any control characters (i.e. the escape 
character) from the string you write to the spool.
c) You can work-around the (b) problem by using a *USERASCII print file 
instead of the default *SCS ones.  However, the iSeries spooler won't 
understand the format of the data, so you'll be limited in how it can be 
manipulated in the spool.  Furthermore, if you do it this way, you'll have 
to send the whole document as ASCII and with all of the required escape 
sequences.  So this is probably not an ideal solution.
d) There are ways to mark escape codes as "transparent data" by writing 
certain hex values to the spool.  I've never been able to get them to 
work, but I've seen others on these lists talking about them.  Might be 
worth looking into.
e) You can set up control codes with WSCST so that the data gets 
transformed with the right control characters in the right place, but this 
requires creating a WSCST driver with the right translation tables, etc. 
I've done some stuff like this, but usually it requires a lot of trial and 
error for me to get it right, and that makes it hard for me to explain to 
you how to do it.
How is your printer configured?   Are you using Host Print Transform?  Is 
it configured with LPR or JetDirect or....?