RE: CCSID and Windows files

[Stephen Landess <steve_landess@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Shane -

Perhaps I can give you a phone call to discuss your issue before I write a novel about it here.  
I have been working with data conversion and CCSID's and basically learning everything the hard way, for going on 15 years...

If you see a call coming from 512-289-0387 that will be me.

Regards,
Steve Landess

Shane Reeves wrote:

> I'm hoping this is the best mailing list for this inquiry. 

> I've been having trouble going through the patchwork of information on the web 
> regarding foreign character sets and exporting the characters to  csv, txt, .xls 
> etc documents Is there a good article or walk through explaining things from beginning to end, 
> of exporting and opening? 

> If you are wondering what I'm working with. I have an ERP with a database setup with Chinese character set.  
> If I use a client access setup with the language, and an account setup with the language, 
> I can see the Chinese characters within the ERP menus/screens. 
> If I do something like the command DSPPFM on the file, 
> while the command labels are in Chinese, the individual characters display gibberish.  
> *(Is there an IBM command or option that will display the correct characters within the file?) 
> The report I'm making I create a temp file and change it to CCSID 836. 
> The file should contain a mix of English and Chinese characters.

> CHGPF      File(Qtemp/Filename) CCSID(836)

> The report previously did an SQL Execute to send the file to the IFS
> EXECUTE    SQL('SELECT * from Filename') PCFMT(*XLS) +
>                      TOSTMF('path/filename.xls') REPLACE(*YES) 

> Which I changed to a CPYTOIMPF to use STMFCODPAG(1386) per documentation of a previous employee
>             CPYTOIMPF  FROMFILE(QTEMP/Filename) +
>                         TOSTMF('path/filename.csv') MBROPT(*REPLACE) +
>                          STMFCODPAG(1386) RCDDLM(*CRLF) +
>                          DTAFMT(*DLM) STRDLM(*NONE) 

> I've also tried some other settings like STMFCCSID(1388) simplified Chinese 

> When I open the documents in Excel or text editors, they show just 'gibberish' 
> (except the English characters) and not the Chinese character set where expected.  
> I have the Chinese language set installed on the local Windows machine.  
> I've also followed some instructions on importing into Excel to get the UTF-8 format, 
> which showed no difference.  So I'm unsure if somewhere in my above export process 
> has something wrong with the formatting, 
> or if the problem is on my Windows Machine in trying to view the resulting document.