EbcdicToAscii (String function)

Convert EBCDIC string to ASCII (String class)

EbcdicToAscii is an intrinsic function that converts an EBCDIC string to ASCII (ISO 8859-1) using the current Unicode tables. Optionally, character references, entity references, and individual ampersand (&) references are converted to the represented ASCII character.

Syntax

%outString = string:EbcdicToAscii[( [CharacterDecode= boolean])] Throws CharacterTranslationException

Syntax terms

%outString	A string variable to receive the method object, string, translated to Ascii.
string	An EBCDIC character string.
CharacterDecode	The optional (name required) CharacterDecode argument is a Boolean enumeration: If its value is True, an ampersand (&) in the input EBCDIC string is allowed only as the beginning of one of these types of character or entity reference: The substring &. This substring is converted to a single & character. A hexadecimal character reference (for example, the six characters '' for the ASCII "Device Control String" character (X'90')). The character reference is converted to the referenced character. As of Sirius Mods version 7.6, an XHTML entity reference (for example, the six characters © for the copyright character ©). The entity reference is converted to the referenced character. A decimal character reference (for example, ¬) is not allowed. If its value is False, the default, an ampersand is treated only as a normal character.

Exceptions

EbcdicToAscii can throw the following exception:

CharacterTranslationException

If the method encounters a translation problem, properties of the exception object may indicate the location and type of problem.

Usage notes

• EbcdicToAscii is available as of Sirius Mods version 7.3.

Examples

The following fragment shows calls of EbcdicToAscii against a variety of EBCDIC characters. The X constant function is used in the example.

%e string Len 20 %a string Len 20 %e = '12' %a = %e:EbcdicToAscii Print %a:StringToHex %e = '1
2' %a = %e:EbcdicToAscii(CharacterDecode=True) Print %a:StringToHex %e = '©' %a = %e:EbcdicToAscii(CharacterDecode=True) Print %a:StringToHex %e = 'F1FFF2':X %a = %e:EbcdicToAscii

The result is:

3132 310A32 A9 CANCELLING REQUEST: MSIR.0751: Class STRING, function EBCDICTOASCII: CHARACTER TRANSLATIONEXCEPTION exception: EBCDIC character X'FF' without valid translation to ASCII at byte position 2 ...

See also

• You can find the list of XHTML entities on the Internet at the following URL:

  http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/dtds.html#h-A2

• There is more information about the Unicode tables.
• The inverse of the EbcdicToAscii method is AsciiToEbcdic.

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