RE: utility to xlat .FDF to .FDFX for ACS file transfer?

I haven't looked at one of these in years but, as I recall, it should be easy to make one by querying SYSCOLUMNS and concatenating the necessary format pieces.

I've used that technique for several special things I've needed to build - or just make my life easier than copy/paste/edit.

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of John Yeung
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2021 7:05 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: utility to xlat .FDF to .FDFX for ACS file transfer?

On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 2:12 PM Jerry Draper <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Anyone write a tool to convert .FDF files to .FDFX files for ACS file
transfer.

I haven't, but it seems like it wouldn't be that hard.

I am not volunteering (yet?) but in case you or anyone else wants to
roll your own, I stumbled upon this site, which has samples of both
FDF and corresponding FDFX files which you could compare to infer the
translation:

https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.misd.net%2Fmt%2Ffdf_files.html&amp;data=04%7C01%7C%7Cb422be36f6244150dae208d8e43a7b6d%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637510287115211732%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&amp;sdata=JCayAsvSdcWib%2FrvE7N6IGZhtdS8UXUg4tOX%2FaMvr8Q%3D&amp;reserved=0

I haven't found documentation for the actual specifications for either
FDF or FDFX, and given the relative simplicity of the formats, reverse
engineering may well be just as good anyway.

IBM doesn't have such a migration tool:

<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibm.com%2Fsupport%2Fpages%2Faccess-client-solutions-data-transfer-migration-tool-does-not-create-fdfx-file&amp;data=04%7C01%7C%7Cb422be36f6244150dae208d8e43a7b6d%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637510287115211732%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&amp;sdata=7kTvbLOH3iZLhaK5kekYSlLWv%2FwSqRubJNr9hNIarrU%3D&amp;reserved=0>

Honestly, this seems... well, look, I understand IBM has "more
important things" to work on with their finite resources. But this is
something that wouldn't (shouldn't!!!) be hard at all for them to
provide, and it would eliminate one more excuse for people to stay on
legacy software. (Or does IBM have an interest in keeping people on
the fat client?)

John Y.