Character Translation (EXPORT command)

Portable files are character files, not binary files, and they have 80-character records so they can be transmitted over data links. A receiving computer may not use the same character set as the computer where the portable file was written. When it imports a portable file, the program translates characters in the file to the character set used by the receiving computer. Depending on the character set in use, some characters in labels and in string data may be lost in the translation. For example, if a file is transported from a computer using a seven-bit ASCII character set to a computer using a six-bit ASCII character set, some characters in the file may have no matching characters in six-bit ASCII. For a character that has no match, the program generates an appropriate nonprintable character (the null character in most cases).

For a table of the character-set translations available with IMPORT and EXPORT, refer to Appendix B. A blank in a column of the table means that there is no matching character for that character set and an appropriate nonprintable character will be generated when you import a file.