topic Re: codepage z/OS and windows platform in SAS Programming

codepage z/OS and windows platform

Jaheuk — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 09:57:27 GMT

dear all,

on mainframe my jobs sends an email.

now I create a footnote with square brackets [ - - - ] but in my email something else appears!

how to know which hexcode to use on mainframe to have square brackets in my mail in outlook??

GreetZ,

Herman

Re: codepage z/OS and windows platform

Cynthia_sas — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:25:21 GMT

Hi:

Just a thought -- I would guess that it's a font issue -- the character used on the mainframe doesn't translate to the same symbol when the output is opened in the mail application, using the mail application's font settings. But, I thought that the square brackets were the same in every font. However, this web page indicates that there might be some fonts that do not support Left/right square brackets specified in UNICODE, for example:

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/5b/fontsupport.htm
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/5d/fontsupport.htm

But then there's also the HTML ASCII entities for square brackets:

left square bracket ... ], right square bracket ... },

So it's not quite clear to me what problem you're running into...a font issue, a unicode issue or an HTML issue.

You might want to work with Tech Support to get the final word.

cynthia

Re: codepage z/OS and windows platform

Jaheuk — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:34:47 GMT

using &#91 and &#93 in the footnote statement did it !!!

Re: codepage z/OS and windows platform

teebark — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:42:54 GMT

I've run intot the same problem. In order to use a tagattr with ODS on the mainframe, the syntax requres square brackets, as in

STYLE(COLUMN)=

{TAGATTR="FORMAT:###,###,##0.00 TYPE:NUMBER

FORMULA:RC+R[+1]C"};

When I ftp the output file to my pc, the square brackets get converted to different characters, like this:

If I manually change the characters back to square brackets, the file loads fine into Excel.

I've been looking for a search and replace utility so the users can execute a script to fix the problem, but haven't found a good solution yet? Would there be a way for this solution to work for me also, like using the hex codes instead of the brackets on the mainframe side?

Re: codepage z/OS and windows platform

Cynthia_sas — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:25:58 GMT

Hi:

This would be a question for Tech Support. When you use TAGATTR, it is because you are using TAGSETS.EXCELXP. I'm not sure how formulas work, but when I use FORMAT:, sometimes the special characters in the format need to be "escaped" with a preceding \ (backslash). I don't know how it works for formulas - -but the folks in Tech support are the best ones to answer this.

The HTML entities may or may not work for you. When you use ODS TAGSETS.EXCELXP, you are NOT creating HTML, you are creating XML output (Spreadsheet Markup Language Office 2003 XML) -- so unless the Microsoft spec explicitly honors HTML entities, Excel has no obligation to use them.

To open a track with Tech Support, fill out the form at this link:

http://support.sas.com/ctx/supportform/createForm

cynthia

Re: codepage z/OS and windows platform

teebark — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 17:17:22 GMT

Solved the problem--it's an FTP problem, and the local team here found the solution. Following is their respones, in case someone else runs into this:

. It turns out the default FTP conversion table doesn’t properly convert the left and right brackets from EBCDIC to ASCII. In order to use the correct conversion table, you need to add another FTP command before you do the ‘put/get’. If you’re doing the FTP from your PC, include the following command:

QUOTE SITE SBD=(IBM-037,ISO8859-1)

This tells FTP to use the IBM-037 codeset and the brackets will be converted properly. A more detailed explanation is (from an IBM forum):

For cases where there is a need to FTP text data to or from MVS containing codeset IBM-037 brackets, it is possible to override our FTP conversion default to use IBM-037 codeset conventions: If the FTP client is running on the MVS side, before the "PUT/GET", execute the command

   LOCSITE SBD=(IBM-037,ISO8859-1)

If the FTP client is running on a remote platform, before the "PUT/GET" execute the command

   QUOTE SITE SBD=(IBM-037,ISO8859-1)

The problem is that the left brackets (x’BA’ in EBCDIC IBM-037) and right brackets (x’BB’) are getting translated to x’8D’ and x’D9’ in ASCII instead of x’5B’ and x’5D’.