Code page conversions

Stabilized feature: CICS® support for Open Network Computing Remote Procedure Call (ONC RPC) is stabilized. Consider exposing and orchestrating applications as API services by using z/OS Connect Enterprise Edition or CICS web services, or by writing web applications in Java or Node.js. See also Stabilization notices and discontinued functions.

Conversion between ASCII and EBCDIC (or vice versa) is done by XDR library functions supplied as part of z/OS® Communications Server. The relevant XDR routines are xdr_text_char, xdr_string, and xdr_wrapstring. These routines use EBCDIC-to-ASCII and ASCII-to-EBCDIC translate tables, which are loaded at z/OS Communications Server initialization from a data set containing one of the possible translate tables provided with z/OS Communications Server. Thus all ONC RPC requests from all clients use the same translate table. There is no provision for ONC RPC data from different client workstations or from different client users to have different character sets.

Various single-byte character set (SBCS) translate tables are provided with z/OS Communications Server, one of which is generated during z/OS Communications Server customization. If none of these is suitable, you could provide your own, as described in z/OS Communications Server: IP Configuration Reference.

z/OS Communications Server provides several code pages for double-byte character sets (DBCS). If you want to include DBCS in ONC RPC data, you have to write your own XDR routines to convert the double-byte characters.