Thank you all for responding and I've learnt a lot from you. Some notes: 1. As far as I can tell, my development is done on 1047, so the library is compiled for that code-page. I do not have any access to any other code-page, so I will need somebody to actually load and compile it according to my documentation and provide me with an XMIT formatted set of libraries for any other code-page. 2. I realized that C is not that popular in the mainframe culture and many shops just do not own a license. That's why I provided the XMIT formatted libraries including binaries (compiled and binded load modules.) 3. The C functions provided by IBM run-time are indeed Posix compliant. PCRE provides much richer and less limited set of functionality and is compatible with Perl (the standard setter) and PHP (which uses PCRE.) 4. In addition to the PCRE itself, I provided some simple functionality that I authored (under same BSD license) to deal with length terminated and null terminated strings. Even if one uses the provided binaries, I encourage you to read my documentation that covers that stuff. 5. I am currently working with Philip Hazel (the original author of PCRE) to fix some EBCDIC related bug in the Posix compliant module. Other then that all core functionality is working. I will publish a revision immediately after we solve the issue. 6. I also provided an API module to deal with the differences between Unix/Linux/Windows names (virtually unlimited length, mixed case and underscores) and z/OS names (8 characters, upper case, etc.) And also another API that alows old PL/I, that uses 7 character names, to call my 8 character names.) 7. I contemplated interfacing with Rexx, but I cannot come with specific well defined API that would agree with that language. And, in the end of the day, while I could read IBM manuals, I do not have the expertise to interface with that language. If anybody wants to help, this is where help is needed.
BTW, the actual porting (except of my added modules and a couple that require manual intervention by the original package instructions for porters,) is done automatically, from scanning the original library through resolving binding issues; all those are done by using automated scripts, written in, you guessed, Perl ZA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
