Re: Experience working with Check 21 file format X9.37

Bill,

I may be totally off base here but it would seem to me that the image
binary data must already be in some format, .JPEG, .TIFF, ect.

Thus, I don't see why you'd need to "use Java Advanced Images to
provide the skeleton of a TIFF, load the image data portion into it
and write out each document as a TIFF."

Can't you simply write out the bytes into an IFS file with an
appropriate extension? RPG would handle that nicely.

Charles

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Blalock, Bill <Bill.Blalock@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Paul:

Here is a link to satisfy your curiosity:

http://www.frbservices.org/servicesetup/check/check21_technical_informat
ion.html

Click on "Image Cash Letter Customer Documentation" link

it was a binary format and that it could have embedded images,
does that sound right from your reading?

Yep.  It is too bad that there isn't an XML standard.  Read this quote
from the generic data types introduction:

" Unless otherwise stated in applicable agreements, all characters and
symbols shall have representation in the common character 8-bit EBCDIC
code scheme with the exception that Digital Signature (Field 17) and
Image
Data (Field 19) in the Image View Data Record (Type 52) is binary data.
Optionally, characters and symbols may be represented using 8-bit ASCII
rules if permitted by agreement between sender and receiver. EBCDIC and
ASCII characters shall not be intermixed in the same interchange. The
coding scheme may be verified by inspecting the first two characters of
the X9.37 file that have the value '01' (File Header Record Type 01,
Field 1).
The value '01' is defined in EBCDIC with the hexadecimal value 'F0F1'
and in ASCII with the hexadecimal value '3031'."

But it is possible to write RPG programs which read and write files in

the IFS file system, I've done that before. I wouldn't expect to be able
to do anything with the embedded images except treat them as a lump of
bytes, though.

I was thinking along the lines of reading the X9.37 file into a user
space and unraveling it into RPG data structures.  As for the image
data, the easiest approach would be to use Java Advanced Images to
provide the skeleton of a TIFF, load the image data portion into it and
write out each document as a TIFF.

My manager would like me to build the TIFF directory in RPG.  That way
our other programmers could work on the project without learning another
language.

Left to my own devices I'd do the whole thing in Java.  But I am trying
to keep an open mind.

Bill Blalock