The problem is not that the term "ASCII" is ambiguous; it isn't. The problem is that people don't understand what ASCII is and refer to things that aren't ASCII as "ASCII". Code pages like 437, 850 and ISO-8859-x aren't ASCII, and if IBM documentation refers to them as ACII then that is a disservice to your customers.
There are, however, issues as to how ASCII should be converted to other code pages. For example, ASCII defines a broken vertical bar, nut it is common to display | as a solid vertical bar. Many code pages have both characters, and either choice can lead to problems. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@listserv.ua.edu> on behalf of Alan Altmark <alan_altm...@us.ibm.com> Sent: Monday, February 19, 2018 1:12 PM To: IBM-MAIN@listserv.ua.edu Subject: Re: Cobol EBCDIC to ASCII On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 13:59:37 -0600, Paul Gilmartin <paulgboul...@aim.com> wrote: >I believe "ASCII" can properly be used to refer to the first 128 characters in >CCSID 819. >including special characters. Informally, many use "ASCII" to refer to CCSID >819 or >other ISO-LATIN code pages. I've been doing code page and translation table development and analysis since about 1987. The term "ASCII" is just as ambiguous as "EBCDIC", as without qualification each term only sets an expectation for the 8-bit encoding of a somewhat vague set of glyphs. The original 7-bit ASCII established a full 95-glyph character set that remains invariant today among all 8-bit ASCII code pages. EBCDIC wasn't quite so lucky, as it has only 56 invariant characters. It would be 82, but lower case a-z can vary or be non-existent. If your data is composed of only the 56 common invariant characters, any EBCDIC and ASCII code page will suffice. All "Latin" EBCDIC code pages will work for lower case a-z. Here are the common invariant characters. A-Z 0-9 space . , + - / * ( ) < > = % : ; _ ? ' " & If you also have: @ ! ~ # $ ^ | [ ] { } ` then any ASCII code page will do, but you need to select your EBCDIC code page carefully. If you have any other glyph, then both ASCII and EBCDIC code pages must be selected with care. Alan Altmark IBM Lab Services ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
