Re: Data conversion from IBM to UNIX

zedez_at_safmarine.co.za (Ewald Ziervogel) wrote:
>We are in the process of moving some systems from an IBM/MVS DB2
>database to Unix/Oracle. We have uncovered a major problem (for us)
>which I am sure has been solved by others.
>Some of our data fields are held on the DB2 database as binary, and
>when transfered to the UNIX platform the conversion from EBCDIC to
>ASCII screws them up!
>Also the Oracle load utility will ignore any data fields containing
>nulls (x'0000' for eg), with disasterous results.
>Neither Oracle (locally), IBM or HP can cast any light on this
>problem.
>Has anyone transfered binary data from IBM to UNIX and if so how can
>the above be avoided?
>Any comments most welcome.
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Basically you can't. Do it the manly way ;) and convert the data on the maainframe before transferring it. Easy enough in COBOL, just move it from the S9 comp sync field to a PIC 9 (no sign or it will flip the last bit and you will once again have garbage). Easytrieve or DYL280 probably work the same way but I'm not as familiar with them; SYNCSORT and IEBGENER could do it too.

Good Luck!

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