Re: CCSID - RPG issues

Hello Birgitta, cesco
Glad to have you aboard (-:

I reduced the skeleton RPG program that I'm testing to the following :


FNMMLIMPF if e k DISK EXTDESC('URPS/NMMLIMPF')
F EXTFILE(*EXTDESC)
F DATA(*NOCVT)

dcl-ds ds_NMMLIMP likerec(NMMLIMPR) ccsid(*exact)

SRCFILEID = 36932 ;
CATLOG = '9OZUjyrCZ_Q' ;

chain (SRCFILEID : CATLOG) NMMLIMPF ds_NMMLIMP ;

C eval *INLR = *ON

comparing ds_NMMLIMP.ITEMNAME in debug to the data in the file shows the
RPG data to be incorrect .
other fields (SRCFILEID, COMPNY, CATLOG...) seems correct.

a condensed DDS for NMMLIMPF is
A R NMMLIMPR
A SRCFILEID 7P 0
A COMPANY 3A ALWNULL
A CMPTYP 2A
A CATTYP 1A
A CATLOG 32A ALWNULL
A ITEMNAME 512 ALWNULL
A VARLEN(30)
A CCSID(1208)
.
.
.
A K SRCFILEID
A K CATLOG


and as I mentioned,
Retrieving this ITEMNAME value and using it to update a Name field in
another file
Works fine when done by SQL.

date: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 08:40:50 +0100
from: "Birgitta Hauser" <Hauser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: RE: CCSID - RPG issues

Without having seen your program and H- and D-Specifications for defining
your data structures ... it is hard to say what happened.
... but per default is everything converted into the Job CCSID, so the
Hex-Value in your program (CCSID 37) can differ from the hex-Value in your
file (CCSID 1208)

In RPG when using native I/O in a cyclic Main procedure without output
into a data structure, RPG generates automatically I/O Buffer (but the
character data are converted into JOBCCSID).

If you want to avoid this, you have to read your data into a data
structure, but you have to suppress any conversion.
This can be done by adding the Keyword DATA(*NOCVT) to the file in the
F-Specs and CCSID(*EXACT) to the Data structure Definition.
With DATA(*NOCVT) are the file data is not converted when reading the data
With CCSID(*EXACT) the (unconverted) read data is moved unconverted into
the data structure.

Example:
DCL-F MyFile Keyed Data(*NoCvt);
DCL-DS OutputDS ExtName('MYFILE': *ALL) CCSID(*EXACT) END-DS;

Mit freundlichen Gr??en / Best regards

Birgitta Hauser
Modernization ? Education ? Consulting on IBM i
Database and Software Architect
IBM Champion since 2020


------------------------------

date: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 09:15:36 +0000 (UTC)
from: cesco via RPG400-L <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: CCSID - RPG issues

Impossible to know without a minimally reproducible example.Your hex dump
are a mix of french ccsid ebcdic and utf8.I personally just use UTF16 in
files , put H CCSID(*UCS2:*UTF16) in the header , varucs2 for any internal
var and all works idiomatically even in stock native io without any? other
particular provisions.
ciau