Re: IFS Stream File with a Pipe symbol as a Record Delimiter

[Scott Klement <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Are you sure they're using the pipe as the record delimiter?  Not the
field delimiter?   Pipes are very common as a field delimiter, but I
haven't seen them used to delimit a record!

If it really is a record delimiter, one easy workaround is to ask QShell 
to transform the pipe character into a linefeed(LF) character.  QShell 
comes with a utility named 'tr' that will translate a character into 
another character.  So you can do this from within QShell:

tr '|' '\n' < /path/to/inputfile > /path/to/outputfile

The input and output files must be two separate files, or you'll have 
problems.  The 'tr' utility in the above example will replace all '|' 
(pipe) characters with \n, which is a symbolic name for line feed.

After that, CPYFRMIMPF can be used with RCDDLM(*LF)

Having said that...  it's a quick, cheap workaround, but not a great 
solution if you're going to do this on a regular basis, you're much 
better off writing a program to read the file using the IFS APIs. 
It'll be faster, require less work from the user, and possibly eliminate 
the need for a temporary PF.

For a one-off setup, I'd use QShell's 'tr' because it's easier.  For a 
permanent, regular job, I'd use the APIs and do it right.


Reger, Bill wrote:
> I downloaded a bunch of stream files via FTP to the IFS.  Now I need
> to get them tranformed into Native iSeries DB files for further
> processing.  The kicker is that these stream files use the Pipe
> symbol ("|" or Hex 4F) as the record delimiter.
>
> Okay cool, I thought.  I'll just use the CPYFRMIMPF command
> specifying the Pipe symbol in the RCDDLM keyword.  However, a
> character value can only be specified with the RCDDLM keyword when
> using a FROMFILE parameter.  It is not allowed with the FROMSTMF
> parameter.
>
> Ummmm, now what do I do?
>
> Bill