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Home > Archive > Data Storage > June 2004 > ebcdic==> ascii tapes-goofy characters
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ebcdic==> ascii tapes-goofy characters
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| Carnivegan 2004-06-09, 8:47 am |
| Dang.
Where can i go for help on this?
I have these mystery tapes with ebcdic on them.
I have novaxchange so i can read them.
A lot of the text is right, but still, I get these goofy characters.
They are there when I view the tape, and they are there after I convert it
(supposedly convert it)
what can I do?
I do not have a file layout.
Shouldn't I at least be able to convert the whole thing to one big text
file, even though I might not know where the beginning or end of the records
are?
How do I get rid of the goofy characters?
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| Malcolm Weir 2004-06-09, 5:08 pm |
| On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 21:38:16 -0600, "Carnivegan" <Haie@dekkTai.com>
wrote:
>Dang.
>Where can i go for help on this?
>I have these mystery tapes with ebcdic on them.
>I have novaxchange so i can read them.
>A lot of the text is right, but still, I get these goofy characters.
>They are there when I view the tape, and they are there after I convert it
>(supposedly convert it)
>
>what can I do?
>I do not have a file layout.
Then you'll have to guess.
>Shouldn't I at least be able to convert the whole thing to one big text
>file, even though I might not know where the beginning or end of the records
>are?
>
>How do I get rid of the goofy characters?
Chances are they're something like BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) or even
just binary. Just because the text system used EBCDIC instead of
(e.g.) ASCII doesn't change the fact that most file formats include
numeric as well as text data. Only the text data is written in
EBCDIC.
Malc.
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| Only the text data is written in EBCDIC??
HOLY plumbsmugglers.
what is the rest written in?
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| can't the tabe just be converted to ascii - with one click????
what is the big mystery???
"Malcolm Weir" <malc@gelt.org> wrote in message
news:e6eec0p33akbe45ahi90aniikv57fgfscm@
4ax.com...
> On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 21:38:16 -0600, "Carnivegan" <Haie@dekkTai.com>
> wrote:
>
it[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> Then you'll have to guess.
>
records[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> Chances are they're something like BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) or even
> just binary. Just because the text system used EBCDIC instead of
> (e.g.) ASCII doesn't change the fact that most file formats include
> numeric as well as text data. Only the text data is written in
> EBCDIC.
>
> Malc.
>
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| Malcolm Weir 2004-06-26, 2:25 pm |
| On Sat, 12 Jun 2004 01:27:33 -0600, "dafon" <dafon@sdafon.net> wrote:
>can't the tabe just be converted to ascii - with one click????
No.
>what is the big mystery???
If the tape is not simple text, then you cannot convert it unless you
can identity the file format.
There's nothing strange about this: if you look in (say) an Oracle
database, so bytes will be characters (in ASCII), other bytes will be
other things (e.g. binary data).
The equivalent with IBM mainframes would be (I think) a DB/2 database,
where the text will by characters (in EBCDIC), and other bytes will be
other things (e.g. BCD).
Malc.
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| Brian Inglis 2004-06-26, 2:26 pm |
| On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 21:38:16 -0600 in comp.arch.storage, "Carnivegan"
<Haie@dekkTai.com> wrote:
>Dang.
>Where can i go for help on this?
>I have these mystery tapes with ebcdic on them.
>I have novaxchange so i can read them.
>A lot of the text is right, but still, I get these goofy characters.
>They are there when I view the tape, and they are there after I convert it
>(supposedly convert it)
Does the tape have any 80 byte ANSI standard labels (VOL1, HRD1, HDR2,
etc.) in ASCII or EBCDIC separated by a tape mark from the file data?
If the tape is labelled, it should indicate whether the records are
F(ixed) or V(ariable) length and the maximum block buffer size
required for reading.
Otherwise, if the blocks vary in size, you probably have variable
length records and blocks.
Variable length blocks normally have a two byte binary bigendian block
length followed by a number of variable length records, each preceded
by a two byte binary bigendian record length.
You should be able to figure out whether the length is exclusive or
inclusive of the 2 length bytes themselves.
The fields in each record are normally fixed length, except for the
last in a variable length record, which is often a text field.
>what can I do?
>I do not have a file layout.
See below.
>Shouldn't I at least be able to convert the whole thing to one big text
>file, even though I might not know where the beginning or end of the records
>are?
No! Copy the whole thing to one big binary file.
Dumping the data in hex should allow you to figure out where the
blocks, records, and fields begin.
>How do I get rid of the goofy characters?
Some fields may be binary: look for leading zero bytes.
Some fields may be packed decimal: look for a (normally) trailing sign
nibble (odd=>negative, normally [CD], although could be any [A-F]) and
leading zero nibbles.
Some fields may be text: look for noncontiguous EBCDIC alpha ranges
[CDE][1-9] (except E1) and digits F[0-9], although the latter might
also occur in leading signed packed decimal formats, with F0 and some
F1 followed by arbitrary nibbles containing [0-9].
--
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Brian.Inglis@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca)
fake address use address above to reply
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| If the table can't just be converted to ASCII with one click, then why is
the file converted from EBCDIC to ASCII when FTPd from an AS/400
Thank you very much.
"Malcolm Weir" <malc@gelt.org> wrote in message
news:hhilc0ptnsh3sqkj0a1u9jtft01897ijjd@
4ax.com...
> On Sat, 12 Jun 2004 01:27:33 -0600, "dafon" <dafon@sdafon.net> wrote:
>
>
> No.
>
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