RE: CCSID - RPG issues

SQL could always handle single byte and double byte character sets ... and
UTF-8 correctly. Transformation occurred automatically.
The problem was always RPG because the data is converted into the Job CCSID.
BTW what is your Job CCSID? 65535?

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards

Birgitta Hauser
Modernization ? Education ? Consulting on IBM i
Database and Software Architect
IBM Champion since 2020

"Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." (Les
Brown)
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-----Original Message-----
From: RPG400-L <rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Gad Miron
Sent: Thursday, 26 February 2026 14:02
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: CCSID - RPG issues

Hello Birgitta, cesco
Glad to have you aboard (-:

I reduced the skeleton RPG program that I'm testing to the following :


FNMMLIMPF if e k DISK EXTDESC('URPS/NMMLIMPF')
F EXTFILE(*EXTDESC)
F DATA(*NOCVT)

dcl-ds ds_NMMLIMP likerec(NMMLIMPR) ccsid(*exact)

SRCFILEID = 36932 ;
CATLOG = '9OZUjyrCZ_Q' ;

chain (SRCFILEID : CATLOG) NMMLIMPF ds_NMMLIMP ;

C eval *INLR = *ON

comparing ds_NMMLIMP.ITEMNAME in debug to the data in the file shows the RPG
data to be incorrect .
other fields (SRCFILEID, COMPNY, CATLOG...) seems correct.

a condensed DDS for NMMLIMPF is
A R NMMLIMPR
A SRCFILEID 7P 0
A COMPANY 3A ALWNULL
A CMPTYP 2A
A CATTYP 1A
A CATLOG 32A ALWNULL
A ITEMNAME 512 ALWNULL
A VARLEN(30)
A CCSID(1208)
.
.
.
A K SRCFILEID
A K CATLOG


and as I mentioned,
Retrieving this ITEMNAME value and using it to update a Name field in
another file Works fine when done by SQL.

date: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 08:40:50 +0100
from: "Birgitta Hauser" <Hauser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: RE: CCSID - RPG issues

Without having seen your program and H- and D-Specifications for
defining your data structures ... it is hard to say what happened.
... but per default is everything converted into the Job CCSID, so the
Hex-Value in your program (CCSID 37) can differ from the hex-Value in
your file (CCSID 1208)

In RPG when using native I/O in a cyclic Main procedure without output
into a data structure, RPG generates automatically I/O Buffer (but the
character data are converted into JOBCCSID).

If you want to avoid this, you have to read your data into a data
structure, but you have to suppress any conversion.
This can be done by adding the Keyword DATA(*NOCVT) to the file in the
F-Specs and CCSID(*EXACT) to the Data structure Definition.
With DATA(*NOCVT) are the file data is not converted when reading the
data With CCSID(*EXACT) the (unconverted) read data is moved
unconverted into the data structure.

Example:
DCL-F MyFile Keyed Data(*NoCvt);
DCL-DS OutputDS ExtName('MYFILE': *ALL) CCSID(*EXACT) END-DS;

Mit freundlichen Gr??en / Best regards

Birgitta Hauser
Modernization ? Education ? Consulting on IBM i Database and Software
Architect IBM Champion since 2020


------------------------------

date: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 09:15:36 +0000 (UTC)
from: cesco via RPG400-L <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: CCSID - RPG issues

Impossible to know without a minimally reproducible example.Your hex
dump are a mix of french ccsid ebcdic and utf8.I personally just use
UTF16 in files , put H CCSID(*UCS2:*UTF16) in the header , varucs2 for
any internal var and all works idiomatically even in stock native io
without any? other particular provisions.
ciau

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