Re: AW: Re: AW: Re: codepage restrictions on IBM applications
On Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:23:05 +0200, Peter Hunkeler wrote:
>...
>I'm not sure whether the text is inspected by WTO or only later by CONSOLE
>when displaying on consoles. The later would make sense to me. You want to
>avoid that strange things happen when strange data is displayed on terminals
>(consoles). Syslog is actually nothing but a data set consting of records.
>Should be able to cope with any byte content.
>
Decades ago, when I was new to TSO (and Rexx wasn't available), I noted
empirically
that TSO was insensitive to case for commands entered at the READY prompt. I
tried using this concept writing a CLIST. Overgeneralized. I got:
IKJE UNKNOWN COMMAND 'DO'.
Well, I had typed "do". The TMP tried to parse it asis, failed, then
translated it
to majuscule to issue the message, thereby obfuscating the nature of the error.
Somewhat similarly, if I enter on most ISPF command lines:
TSO ALLOCATE PATH('/dev/null')
I get:
IKJI PATH ('/DEV/NULL') NOT IN CATALOG OR CATALOG CAN NOT BE ACCESSED.
Slightly different in that the harmful translation is performed *before*
attempting
to elaborate the command. ISPF should *never* convert the case of the TSO
command; just pass it to the TMP as typed.
>Tools such as SDSF which display the syslog would then again make sure only
>harmless characters are displayed..
>
ISPF is well aware of terminal code pages and filters nondisplable characters.
ISPF support was glad to fix by APAR an error I discovered in this processing.
Don't know about SDSF from the TSO READY prompt.
>Opinions? I'm thinking about sending an RCF asking for clear description of
>this.
>
Ouch! You'll be in a thicket of code pages and CCSIDs. They *might* provide
CP037-based list of characters and hex code points. How useful would that
information be? I doubt they'll respect case in operator commands even where
it matters, such as UNIX mountpoints.
-- gil
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AW: Re: AW: Re: codepage restrictions on IBM applications
I had a look at manual z/OS V2.1 MVS Assembler Services Guide. It describes the characters "... that will be displayed on the console..." in a table. This tbale contains this table shows a lot of special characters as well as all upper *and* lower case letters. It also say that characters not in the table will be replaced by blanks weh displayed on the console. Unfortunately, the manual does not talk about how the message text is treated when written to the syslog. A quick experiment shows that besides above characters, als accented characters show unchanged in syslog. I can't verify what is displayed on the console. I'm not sure whether the text is inspected by WTO or only later by CONSOLE when displaying on consoles. The later would make sense to me. You want to avoid that strange things happen when strange data is displayed on terminals (consoles). Syslog is actually nothing but a data set consting of records. Should be able to cope with any byte content. Tools such as SDSF which display the syslog would then again make sure only harmless characters are displayed.. Opinions? I'm thinking about sending an RCF asking for clear description of this. --Peter Hunkeler -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
AW: Re: AW: Re: codepage restrictions on IBM applications
>>I doubt this is still correct information. After all, even z/OS base >>components issue WTOs in mixed case. ZFS is one that comes to my mind, and >>I'm pretty sure there are more but I can't name them without looking up. >> >What about WTOR? You mention ZFS (ITYM zFS; they're not the same.) >and UNIX filesystems are case-sensitive. Yep, zFS not ZFS, although the address space I'm takling about is named ZFS not zFS. And UNIX case sensitivity is not involved here. It is a z/OS program writing mixed case messages using WTOs (and possibly WTORs). Some other components writeing mixed mode messages to syslog: - SMS PDSE support, e.g. IGW040I - z/OS Message Flood Automaiton, CNZZ messages - z/OS SDSF, ISF messages - CICS V4, e.g. DFH0100 -- Peter Hunkeler -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: AW: Re: codepage restrictions on IBM applications
On Tue, 26 Jul 2016 22:04:42 +0200, Peter Hunkeler wrote: > >>It's worse than that. One may safely use those characters that are called >>in manuals Alphabetic, Numeric, or Special. They're enumerated. all others >>are considered Invalid. Alphabetic does *not* include lower case. > >I doubt this is still correct information. After all, even z/OS base >components issue WTOs in mixed case. ZFS is one that comes to my mind, and I'm >pretty sure there are more but I can't name them without looking up. > What about WTOR? You mention ZFS (ITYM zFS; they're not the same.) and UNIX filesystems are case-sensitive. And I believe any NFS is required to have an all-majuscule handle, useful for little besides operator commands. And I still wonder about those pesky half-Katakana or half-Cyrillic terminals. -- gil -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
AW: Re: codepage restrictions on IBM applications
>It's worse than that. One may safely use those characters that are called >in manuals Alphabetic, Numeric, or Special. They're enumerated. all others >are considered Invalid. Alphabetic does *not* include lower case. I doubt this is still correct information. After all, even z/OS base components issue WTOs in mixed case. ZFS is one that comes to my mind, and I'm pretty sure there are more but I can't name them without looking up. -- Peter Hunkeler -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: codepage restrictions on IBM applications
On Mon, 25 Jul 2016 16:46:30 -0500, Janet Graff wrote: > >Since WTO is restricted to CP-37 displayable EBCDIC characters this means that >the system console messages, and the job log messages are restricted to >readable EBCDIC characters. That codepage does define accented and >non-English characters so this would mean that some of these products could >issue latin codepage messages that were non-English. > It's worse than that. One may safely use those characters that are called in manuals Alphabetic, Numeric, or Special. They're enumerated. all others are considered Invalid. Alphabetic does *not* include lower case. The motivation: there are some terminals that support those three classes then dedicate other code points, particularly Latin lower case to Katakana, Cyrillic, or ... To accommodate this, our products which have mixed-case message templates have a switch selecting whether message texts should be translated to upper case for display. >Can anyone confirm that they do that? If configured properly, will >DB2/IMS/CICS issue non-English messages to the console or job logs? > >In the local output files (non-console or job log) for the products do they go >beyond CP-37? Do they have output in non-latin codepages? Might they contain >DBCS? > DFSORT is quite eclectic. It allows specification independently of code page and collating sequence, for example En_GB.UTF-8. I don't know whether it will infer the code page from the UNIX file tag. But the collating sequence for En_US seems badly broken. I need to renew an old PMR concerning that. -- gil -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
codepage restrictions on IBM applications
I understand that IBM left it up to the product owners to decide what NLS support meant to their products. Can anyone give me information on how codepages are supported by some of the more popular products ( like DB2, IMS, CICS)? Since WTO is restricted to CP-37 displayable EBCDIC characters this means that the system console messages, and the job log messages are restricted to readable EBCDIC characters. That codepage does define accented and non-English characters so this would mean that some of these products could issue latin codepage messages that were non-English. Can anyone confirm that they do that? If configured properly, will DB2/IMS/CICS issue non-English messages to the console or job logs? In the local output files (non-console or job log) for the products do they go beyond CP-37? Do they have output in non-latin codepages? Might they contain DBCS? Janet -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
