> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ISPF is old. It was invented before the formalization of code pages. I > believe some functions use them and some do not. IIRC, code page support > was originally added in ISPF 4.1 in order to facilitate ASCII to EBCDIC > translation for what was then called the ISPF GUI.
I don't know when code page support was added or for what reason, but I know it's used for much more than just PC/workstation support. For example, suppose someone created a dialog that converts between different currencies. If it was developed in North America (using code page 037) and the dollar sign or pound sign (etc) was hard-coded to appear in a variable that's displayed on a panel, the currency symbol wouldn't be displayed correctly in countries outside North America. To avoid this problem the developer would need to call the ISPF service that does code page translations, and ask it to convert the currency symbol from CP-037 to whichever CP is being used by the user. If the person using the dialog is in Finland (for example) and they're using code page 278, the currency symbol would be converted to their code page and displayed correctly. However, this assumes the person in Finland has their ISPF code page correctly set to 278; in other words, that it's in sync with their emulator code page. But if the two code pages are not in sync (e.g. if the emulator code page is 278 but the value in the ISPF ZTERMCID variable is 037), the currency symbol would NOT be translated and would therefore be displayed incorrectly. Dave Salt See the new SimpList(tm) rollover image at: http://www.mackinney.com/products/SIM/simplist.htm _________________________________________________________________ Try Chicktionary, a game that tests how many words you can form from the letters given. Find this and more puzzles at Live Search Games! http://g.msn.ca/ca55/207 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
