Re: FTP weirdness -- MIDRANGE-L

Bruce,

What's the best way to manipulate the language used on demand? By changing the *LIBL or the job's CCSID?

Let's say the primary is Spanish and the secondary is English. If the user would like to see a message that would be best understood in English, can the application easily switch programmatically?

-mark

At 8/27/2011 08:52 AM, you wrote:

Luis,

I'm responding to your comment (rather than the topic FTP Weirdness):

"This has been a somewhat crazy day (not a good excuse, I know) and, believe
me, IBM's translations of their help texts (our i5 is in Spanish) sometimes
are a little confusing.."

Don't forget that the i can support multiple languages concurrently. When I
was back in the lab it was noticed that some geographic locations, in
addition to their national language, had rather significant percentages of
their systems ordered with English. In an extrme case one Asian country had
in the neighborhood of 97% of their system ordered with English as the
primary language (which caught our attention!) and then their national
language as a secondary language. With a little investigation we found that
the reason was related to customer support personnel (operations,
development) wanting, in the case of really technical second level help
text, to read the English text as provided directly by the developers --
and not risk any potential loss of information that could be introduced by
translation services. The translations provided by IBM are generally quite
good but there are some rather detailed messages (database for some reason
coming to mind lol) that can require more than one reading by even the best
of developers (even when using the English text), let alone by translators
who cannot be technical experts in all areas of the system.
You may want to check out the possibility of ordering English as a secondary
national language version (NLV) for your system.

Bruce Vining

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 8:05 PM, Luis Rodriguez <luisro58@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Mark,
>
> Thanks for your answer. Scott Klement and Rob Berendt were also very kind
> to
> set me straight on these particular points (FTP server and client).
>
> This has been a somewhat crazy day (not a good excuse, I know) and, believe
> me, IBM's translations of their help texts (our i5 is in Spanish) sometimes
> are a little confusing..
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Luis Rodriguez
> IBM Certified Systems Expert ? eServer i5 iSeries
> --
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 5:04 PM, Mark Murphy/STAR BASE Consulting Inc. <
> mmurphy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > If you look at the help for CHGFTPA, right up at the top it says:
> > The Change FTP attributes (CHGFTPA) command changes the
> > configuration for the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers.
> >
> > In an FTP transfer there are always two applications running, the server,
> > and the client. The server is the side that sits and listens for
> requests,
> > the client is the side that is making the requests. Based on the OP
> > question, the server in this case in on the Sterling Integrator FTP
> server
> > side, and the client is on the IBM i side. I am also guessing that the
> > files with CCSID(500) is already there, and is also on the IBM i side.
> If
> > this is indeed the case, then CHGFTPA will do nothing since it affects
> only
> > the FTP server on the IBM i side, and the FTP server is not involved in
> this
> > transfer on the IBM i side, the server is on the Sterling Integrator
> side.
> >
> > I also looked at the help for the FTP command (the client piece of this
> > transfer). For the CCSID parameter it says:
> > Coded character set identifier (CCSID) - Help
> >
> > Specifies the ASCII coded character set identifier (CCSID) that is used
> > for single-byte character set (SBCS) ASCII file transfers when the FTP
> > TYPE mode is set to ASCII. ASCII file transfers are also assumed when
> > no TYPE subcommand has been issued. The CCSID value chosen is the
> > default used by the FTP client for ASCII-to-EBCDIC and EBCDIC-to-ASCII
> > mapping. Mapping is determined using the specified ASCII CCSID and the
> > EBCDIC CCSID of the job.
> >
> > So the ASCII CCSID is the one specified, or if *DFT is specified it uses
> > 819 (further down in the help). And the EBCDIC CCSID is the Job CCSID.
> > Nothing tells what CCSID is used if the file already exists, in my
> > experience it has always been the file CCSID. Of course if the file was
> > pre-existing, and has a CCSID of 500, how did it get that in the first
> place
> > if your system CCSID is 65535/37? Do you have multiple languages? Did
> you
> > restore the file from a system with CCSID(500)? Did someone manually set
> it
> > that way? If you are creating the files each time, check the job
> > description of the job that runs the FTP command.
> >
> > Mark Murphy
> > STAR BASE Consulting, Inc.
> > mmurphy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > -----midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: -----
> > To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > From: Luis Rodriguez
> > Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Date: 08/26/2011 03:42PM
> > Subject: Re: FTP weirdness
> >
> > Scott,
> >
> > I overlooked the part about Sterling Integrator in my response, as I
> > thought
> > it was a software running in the other server (the "PC" side). As I have
> > just posted, it has been a somewhat complicated afternoon.
> >
> > I'm just a little curious about your assertion that the CHGFTPA
> parameters
> > don't do any difference here. As I see it (and it could be an error of
> > my part interpreting the help text of the command), CRTCCSID works every
> > time the file is created (in the "library" file system), regardless of
> who
> > the client is.
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Luis Rodriguez
> > IBM Certified Systems Expert — eServer i5 iSeries
> > --
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 2:44 PM, Scott Klement
> > <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I'm not going to pretend that I understand why you're getting a file
> > > marked with CCSID 500.
> > >
> > > However, the info from CHGFTPA that you posted isn't relevant to this
> > > transfer, is it? Didn't you say the server was running Sterling
> > > Integrator?!
> > >
> > > If you are using the IBM FTP *client*, then the relevant settings are
> > > specified on the FTP (or STRTCPFTP) command.
> > >
> > > CHGFTPA designates the settings for the IBM-supplied FTP *server*, not
> > > the client.
> > >
> > > Also, please be aware that if the file already exists, it'll retain
> it's
> > > CCSID. If you're letting FTP create a new file (not recommended for
> > > physical files) then it should assign the job's CCSID (which would be
> 37
> > > in your case, which is why I said I don't pretend to understand.)
> > >
> > >
> > > On 8/26/2011 9:16 AM, sjl wrote:
> > > > Background:
> > > >
> > > > =======================================
> > > > System is Power 6, V5R4, QCCSID = 65535
> > > > =======================================
> > > >
> > > > PC 5250 5.9 session configured to use Host code-page 37:
> > > >
> > > > Display Job Definition Attributes
> > > > Job: XXXXXXXXXX User: WINBLOWS Number: 161946
> > > >
> > > > Job switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 00000000
> > > > Inquiry message reply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *SYSRPYL
> > > > Accounting code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :
> > > > Print text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : '
> > > '
> > > > DDM conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *KEEP
> > > > Break message handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *NORMAL
> > > > Status message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *NORMAL
> > > > Device recovery action . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *ENDJOBNOLIST
> > > > Time slice end pool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *NONE
> > > > Print key format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *PRTHDR
> > > > Sort sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *HEX
> > > > Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :
> > > > Language identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : ENU
> > > > Country or region identifier . . . . . . . . . . : US
> > > > Coded character set identifier . . . . . . . . . : 65535
> > > > Default coded character set identifier . . . . . : 37
> > > > Character identifier control . . . . . . . . . . : *DEVD
> > > > Job message queue maximum size . . . . . . . . . : 64
> > > > Job message queue full action . . . . . . . . . . : *PRTWRAP
> > > > Allow multiple threads . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *NO
> > > > Auxiliary storage pool group . . . . . . . . . . : *NONE
> > > > Spooled file action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *KEEP
> > > >
> > > > =======================================
> > > > When prompting the CHGFTPA command, I see:
> > > >
> > > > Change FTP Attributes (CHGFTPA)
> > > > Type choices, press Enter.
> > > >
> > > > Autostart servers . . . . . . . AUTOSTART> *YES
> > > > Number of initial servers . . . NBRSVR> 3
> > > > Inactivity timeout . . . . . . . INACTTIMO 300
> > > > Coded character set identifier CCSID 00819
> > > > Outgoing EBCDIC/ASCII table: TBLFTPOUT
> > > > Outgoing EBCDIC/ASCII table . *CCSID
> > > > Library . . . . . . . . . .
> > > > Incoming ASCII/EBCDIC table: TBLFTPIN
> > > > Incoming ASCII/EBCDIC table . *CCSID
> > > > Library . . . . . . . . . .
> > > > Initial name format . . . . . . NAMEFMT *LIB
> > > > Initial directory . . . . . . . CURDIR *CURLIB
> > > > Initial list format . . . . . . LISTFMT *DFT
> > > > New file CCSID . . . . . . . . . CRTCCSID *CALC
> > > > Subsystem description . . . . . SBSD QSYSWRK
> > > > Library . . . . . . . . . . . QSYS
> > > >
> > > > =======================================
> > > >
> > > > Question:
> > > >
> > > > When I interactively run an FTP script from the Power system to do an
> > > MGET
> > > > from a Sterling Integrator FTP server, I notice that the file(s)
> > received
> > > > get tagged with CCSID(500).
> > > >
> > > > Given the above information, why is the system determining that
> > > CCSID(500)
> > > > is the correct CCSID to use? I would expect CCSID(37)...
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > > sjl