PI23332: PARAGRAPH SIGN § IN AN RDZ PROPERTY GROUP ADDITIONAL JCL FIELD TRANSLATES TO AN INVALID CHARACTER.

Rational Developer for System z Fix Pack 3 (9.0.1.3) for 9.0.1
Rational Developer for System z Fix Pack 4 (9.0.1.4) for 9.0.1
Rational Developer for System z Fix Pack 5 (9.0.1.5) for 9.0.1
Rational Developer for System z Fix Pack 6 (9.0.1.6) for 9.0.1
Rational Developer for System z Interim Fix 1 for 9.0.1.6
Rational Developer for System z Fix Pack 7 (9.0.1.7) for 9.0.1

APAR status

• Closed as program error.

Error description

• Paragraph sign § in an Rational Developer for System z property
  group additional JCL field translates to an invalid character
  x'3F' on the host.
  
  The invalid character is already visible when opening generated
  JCL before submitting as a right arrow (the appearance can
  vary). After submitting the character is invalid (x'3F').
  
  If, before submit from RDz, the invalid right arrow is changed
  into a paragraph sign then the problem is circumvented. So this
  does not appear to be a code page problem. § = Unicode x'00A7'
  = IBM-037 x'B5'.
  
  Reproducion:
  * Insert § in JCL comment or DD statement in a property group
    (additional JCL field e.g. tab JCL, field "JCL job card")
  * Generate JCL
  * On question Open or submit select open
  * Insert § in another comment for verification
  * Submit / save JCL
  
  Observe x'3F' instead of EBCDIC paragraph sign in z/OS dataset
  after ISPF browse and command "HEX ON". The expected Hexadecimal
  value for a paragraph sign depends on the active host code page.
  

Local fix

• Insert paragraph sign in JCL editor (Open from popup dialog)
  before submit.
  

Problem summary

• We were using the default character encoding when creating the
  BufferedWriter which writes the JCL during JCL generation.  The
  default encoding could not handle the unicode U+00A7 of the
  section sign.
  

Problem conclusion

• We now pass a character set encoding name to the BufferedWriter
  writing the JCL file.  The encoding defaults to UTF-8 but can be
  overridden by an encoding set on the source file.
  
  The problem listed in this APAR has been resolved with
  IBM Rational Developer for System z V9.0.1.3 Fix Pack which
  is available from the Recommended Fixes support download page:
  http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=2294&uid=swg27006335
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

• APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

• APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

Fix information

• Fixed component name

  RATL DEV FOR SY

• Fixed component ID

  5724T0700

Applicable component levels

• R901 PSY

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