General considerations for using DBCS text with DDS files

Be aware of these general considerations for positional entries, keyword entries, double-byte character set (DBCS) text literals, and data description specifications (DDS) computer printouts that contain DBCS characters.

DBCS text can be encoded as either Unicode or Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC). If you are working on a new application, enabling an existing application for DBCS text, or working on an application involving Java™, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), or other Web methods, then IBM® i Unicode support provides the easiest way to support not only DBCS text but also other text types. If you are working on an existing application already supporting DBCS text stored as EBCDIC, then IBM i EBCDIC support for DBCS text is useful.

DDS uses the following terms to describe the different types of DBCS data:

DBCS data

A general term to describe any form of EBCDIC-encoded DBCS data.

DBCS field

A general term to describe any field that can contain EBCDIC-encoded DBCS data.

Bracketed DBCS data

EBCDIC-encoded DBCS data that begins with a shift-out character and ends with a shift-in character.

DBCS graphic data

EBCDIC-encoded DBCS data that contains only DBCS data and does not contain shift-out and shift-in characters.

Unicode data

A general term to describe any form of Unicode-encoded DBCS data.

Unicode field

When the graphic data type is used with CCSID 1200 specified, then Unicode (UTF-16) is stored in the field instead of EBCDIC. When character data type is used with CCSID 1208 specified, then Unicode (UTF-8) is stored in the field instead of EBCDIC.