Re: READING A TAB DELIMITED FILE IN ILE COBOL

On 08/06/2010, at 6:53 AM, Nancy Barney wrote:

I am trying to read a tab delimited file, which was created
by Excel. This ILE COBOL Version 6, Release 1.

I have the tab character in working storage defined as:

01 WS-HEX-TAB PIC X(01) VALUE X"09".

That's an ASCII Horizontal Tab. Is the data still in ASCII?

You say it was created by Excel but then it has to transferred
to the host. That transfer probably converted from ASCII to
EBCDIC therefore the Tab code-point will be different (X'05' in
CCSID 37 which is likely what you're using presuming you're in
the US).

If the data is in a database file use DSPPFM to view then press
F10=Hex then F11=Over/Under, locate the tab and see its
corresponding hexadecimal code-point.

If the data is in a stream file then use DSPF to view and press
F10=Hex. This command doesn't have an Over/Under option so
locating the Tab is a bit harder.

If the data *IS* still ASCII then you probably want it in EBCDIC
so either transfer in text mode rather than binary, or transfer
to a stream file and use CPYFRMIMPF to convert and extract.