Re: Help w/ Packed Decimal

Unfortunately, sometimes reading the API's gives only half the story. You've 
got to have a feel for what they mean, and I didn't. Now I do; thanks. I'll 
give it a shot sometime today or this evening.
As for the Olympics, they'll be talking about the men's gymnastics for a while, 
I'm sure.
Thanks
Bob
-------------- Original message -------------- 

> 
> Hi Bob, 
> 
> Sorry for the delay, blame those pesky clients ( who believe our 24/7 
> claims ) and the Olympics. 
> 
> I thought I had been reasonably clear before, but I'll step through it. 
> A few things first: 
> 
> * Read the binary file with no encoding specified. This still uses the 
> default encoding, but the net effect is no translation of the binary data. 
> That's what you want, because you will be converting the data yourself. 
> 
> * Don't use BinaryConverter. As I mentioned in my previous message, it 
> doesn't understand BCD and the effective output for this purpose is garbage. 
> 
> * Read the API's. AS400PackedDecimal wants the number of digits, not 
> the field length. 
> 
> Steps: 
> 
> Get a FileInputStream ( with buffering for efficiency ) on the binary 
> file. 
> 
> Loop until read receives -1 for EOF. 
> 
> Read for the record length into a record-sized byte array. 
> 
> For Strings, use the constructor that takes a byte array, offset, length 
> and encoding. I use "Cp500", but whatever works for you. 
> 
> For the packed fields, use an AS400PackedDecimal variable with the 
> proper number of digits and decimal positions. From your example, use 
> 
> a4PD = new AS400PackedDecimal( 7, 0 ); 
> 
> Then use AS400PackedDecimal.toDouble(byte[] as400Value, int offset) 
> and cast to an int 
> 
> or 
> 
> use AS400PackedDecimal.toObject(byte[] as400Value, int offset) and get 
> the intValue() from the returned BigDecimal. 
> 
> Repeat as appropriate for each field in the record. 
> 
> end of Loop. 
> 
> 
> Joe Sam 
> 
> Joe Sam Shirah - http://www.conceptgo.com 
> conceptGO - Consulting/Development/Outsourcing 
> Java Filter Forum: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/ 
> Just the JDBC FAQs: http://www.jguru.com/faq/JDBC 
> Going International? http://www.jguru.com/faq/I18N 
> Que Java400? http://www.jguru.com/faq/Java400 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: 
> To: "Java Programming on and around the iSeries / AS400" 
> 
> Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 9:00 AM 
> Subject: Re: Help w/ Packed Decimal 
> 
> 
> > Thanks Joe and Mark - 
> > First a little background: The field is 4 bytes long packed, 7 unpacked. 
> It's an integer value, so no decimals (Although I have dollar amounts to 
> deal with if I get past this). I've tried the below code three different 
> ways: 
> > 1) Reading the file that had been converted to ASCII 
> > 2) Reading the binary file, with encoding set to "IBM1047" 
> > 3) Reading the binary file, with no encoding. 
> > Here's the code I'm using: 
> > String strValue = rec.substring (from-1, to); 
> > System.out.println("strValue = " + BinaryConverter.bytesToString 
> (strValue.getBytes () )); 
> > AS400PackedDecimal pd = new AS400PackedDecimal (4,0); 
> > double pdNum = pd.toDouble (BinaryConverter.stringToBytes (strValue)); 
> > System.out.println ("Packed Decimal = " + pdNum); 
> > And the result (From all three attempts) : 
> > strValue = 0000000C 
> > java.lang.NumberFormatException 
> > at 
> com.ibm.as400.access.BinaryConverter.stringToBytes(BinaryConverter.java:531) 
> > at 
> com.ibm.as400.access.BinaryConverter.stringToBytes(BinaryConverter.java:485) 
> > at 
> com.ibm.as400.access.BinaryConverter.stringToBytes(BinaryConverter.java:478) 
> > at gcs.ParseCAT_GLS.parseRecord(ParseCAT_GLS.java:142) 
> > at gcs.ParseCAT_GLS.parseRecord(ParseCAT_GLS.java:160) 
> > at gcs.ParseCAT_GLS.parseRecord(ParseCAT_GLS.java:160) 
> > at gcs.ParseCAT_GLS.getNextRecord(ParseCAT_GLS.java:117) 
> > at gcs.TransformCAT_GLS.main(TransformCAT_GLS.java:44) 
> > Exception in thread "main" 
> > I thought about trying to create a SequentialFile object along with a 
> RecordFormat object, but that requires a connection to a server. 
> > -------------- Original message -------------- 
> > 
> > > 
> > > Hi Bob, 
> > > 
> > > You need to bring the file across as binary and then do a field by field 
> > > conversion using the String and 
> > > com.ibm.as400.access.AS400PackedDecimal classes. 
> > > 
> > > If you bring it down as text, each byte, typically, is converted to 
> > > ASCII. That doesn't work for true numeric fields because they aren't 
> > > characters but binary values that don't map to a character set. The same 
> is 
> > > true for a non-EBCDIC file that contains numbers and characters, and is 
> why 
> > > trying to just use an encoding translation on that kind of file doesn't 
> > > work. 
> > > 
> > > As Mark indicated, BinaryConverter doesn't understand that C, D and/or F 
> > > are sign indicators and takes them at their hex value. While we are 
> > > accustomed to 'F' for positive values on the '400, 'C' is an explicit 
> > > positive used often on mainframes. If my recollection is correct, any 
> value 
> > > other than 'D' is taken as positive. 
> > > 
> > > Have fun, 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Joe Sam 
> > > 
> > > Joe Sam Shirah - http://www.conceptgo.com 
> > > conceptGO - Consulting/Development/Outsourcing 
> > > Java Filter Forum: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/ 
> > > Just the JDBC FAQs: http://www.jguru.com/faq/JDBC 
> > > Going International? http://www.jguru.com/faq/I18N 
> > > Que Java400? http://www.jguru.com/faq/Java400 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > > From: "Bob Szemethy" 
> > > To: 
> > > Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 10:51 PM 
> > > Subject: Help w/ Packed Decimal 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > Hi all - 
> > > > 
> > > > A quick question about a flat file built on a S/390, that I am trying 
> to 
> > > > process on a Windows box using JTOpen. 
> > > > 
> > > > I have access to the file only though an FTP applet that our HQ 
> > > > maintains, and I pulled the file down as text and as binary. When I'm 
> > > > processing the file, I have no trouble with the text fields, but there 
> > > > are some packed decimal fields that are not coming across. 
> > > > 
> > > > I also was able to parse the binary file when I set the encoding to 
> > > > "IBM1047", but had the same problem with the packed fileds. 
> > > > 
> > > > I tried the BinaryConverter class, and the method to convert to Hex 
> > > > string for the byte array, and for the text and binary files, it 
> returns 
> > > > the following sting for a 4 byte number : "0000000C", which I 
> understand 
> > > > to be 12, but I know the number should be 1. 
> > > > 
> > > > So my question is this: Can I parse a packed-decimal field in a file 
> > > > that has been translated to ASCII or Unicode? Thanks for any help. 
> > > > 
> > > > Bob 
> > > > 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
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