Re: CCSID 65535 v5r2-->v5r4 upgrade

If I had a number of installed systems where some were configured as CCSID 37 and others as 65535 then I would certainly change the 65535 systems to an appropriate CCSID -- in your case 37. I wouldn't necessarily do it as part of the upgrade, as I don't believe in changing too many variables at one time, but would make the CCSID change either before or after the upgrade with sufficient time betwween changes to adequately test.

If your systems are all in the US, all users are in the US, all applications are home grown, and the current QLANGID system value is set to 'ENU' (which is most likely the case and driving each job's language ID job attribute) then changing the QCCSID system value from 65535 to 37 should be very straightforward.

One possible 'gotcha' would be if you have applications that are not home grown. It's unlikely, but if the application was developed outside of the United States it may have database files that are non-65535 and non-37 tagged and have control values (for instance a '#' value) that will not survive a CCSID conversion to CCSID 37 (your new job CCSID). In that case, which again I would consider very unlikely due to the size of the CCSID 37 market, then that specific file may need to be tagged as CCSID 65535. For other readers of this note (this is after all a global mailing list), I would be more concerned if the QLANGID system value was not 'ENU' and I was looking at changing the QCCSID system value from 65535 to a non-37 value.

Be aware that changing QCCSID to 37 does not 'turn on' all CCSID awareness within the system. Database, keying off of the job CCSID, will be 'on' but other components of the system (*DSPF, UIM panels, *MSGFs, etc) will continue to be defaulting to essentially a 65535 environment. But having an explicit CCSID tag of 37 for QCCSID (and jobs which typically inherit from QCCSID) is worth doing as it eliminates certain 'guess work' that the system is currently doing based on QLANGID. Setting the correct CCSID now certainly prepares you for the future if and when you need to provide data interchange with other networked systems.

Hope this helps (my net recommendation is 'go for it'),
Bruce Vining


Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So has anybody else got any input?

Bruce you out there?

Charles

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:42 AM, Charles Wilt wrote:

All,

I'm aware of issues regarding CPYxxxIMPF and CCSID 65535 when moving
to v5r4 from v5r2 or earlier due to the changes at v5r3.

I'm looking for additional issues others may have been bit by.

Particularity in scenarios were there are multiple systems involved,
some at v5r2, some at v5r4, some with CCSID 65335 and some with CCSID
37.

I'm trying to make a case that we should change everything to 37.
Since all our boxes are in the US with US users only.

I'm also pushing for looking at any existing file on the boxes that
has CCSID 65535 to see if it should be changed.

Thank for the ammo!

Charles Wilt