Converting UTF-8 to national (NATIONAL-OF)

You can use one of the two methods described in this topic to convert a UTF-8 data item to a national data item.

About this task

When a UTF-8 item (USAGE UTF-8) is used as the sender and a national item is used as the receiver, the MOVE statement converts automatically. Do not use the NATIONAL-OF intrinsic function.
For example:
```
01 UTF8-SEND PIC U(100).

01 NAT-RECV PIC N(100).

...

MOVE "abcd" TO UTF8-SEND

MOVE UTF8-SEND TO NAT-RECV
```
UTF8-SEND contains hex "61626364" padded by hex "20" (spaces). Upon execution of the last MOVE statement, NAT-RECV contains hex "0061006200630064" padded by hex "0020" (spaces).
When UTF-8 data is stored in an alphanumeric item at runtime, use the NATIONAL-OF intrinsic function to convert the data to a national item.
For example:
```
01 ALPHA-SEND PIC X(100).

01 NAT-RECV PIC N(100).

...

MOVE X"61626364" TO ALPHA-SEND

MOVE FUNCTION NATIONAL-OF(ALPHA-SEND(1:4) 1208) TO NAT-RECV
```
ALPHA-SEND(1:4) contains hex "61626364". Upon execution of the last MOVE statement, NAT-RECV contains hex "0061006200630064" padded by hex "0020" (spaces).

Related references
NATIONAL-OF (Enterprise COBOL for z/OS® Language Reference)