Write Unicode strings to a file with COBOL

Question

We're in the process of updating our COBOL programs running on an IBM Mainframe (z/OS) to support non-latin characters.

I'm struggling a bit with understanding how COBOL processes UTF-16 characters defined as PIC N.

I need to update a field currently defined as PIC X to PIC N. This field then gets written to a file.

Example:

01 RecordToWrite PIC X(20).

I understand PIC N needs twice as much space as PIC X. What I don't know is how to define the corresponding PIC N field.

My guess would be COBOL takes care of the conversion itself:

01 RecordToWrite PIC N(20).

But I'm really not sure if it's that simple.

Can I just simply define the old field as PIC N without having to worry that my file still looks the same? Which measures do I need to take?

Answer 1

你的领域：

01 RecordToWrite PIC N(20).

对于20个字符，将消耗40个字节。因此，您需要进行相应的调整，从X到N.

您可能还需要使用NATIONAL-OF和DISPLAY-OF函数将其转换为UTF-16或CCSID 1200.一旦转换了数据，您就不再需要使用它了，你的40字节/ 20字符Pic N的行为就像旧的Pic X字段一样 - 除非你必须与系统中未转换的部分交谈。