Expert: Concise Systems/Laird Scranton - 6/1/2005

Question
Hi! Currently i received some data that contain funny character(ASCII code) which cause problem when i retrieve at AS400. For example: Remark field consists of 50 character but the first 30 character is look okay and follow by a few ASCII character. How do i ignore those ASCII code. Pls advise are they any way for me to overcome it ? Thanks in adavnced.

Cheers,
Yoke Mei

Answer
It may be as simple as specifing *YES on the ignore-decimal-data-errors parameter when you compile the RPG program.  If your file consists of uppercase character data and you want to strip off the bad characters, here's a program to do it (specify your record length).  Be sure you have a safe backup copy of the file before trying the program.

FINPUT  UP   80      DISK
E           REC     80  1      Record image
IINPUT  NS
I                            1  80 REC
C           1       DO  80     R  20
C           REC,R   IFLT 'A'
C           REC,R   ORGT 'Z'
C           REC,R   IFLT '0'
C           REC,R   ORGT '9'
C                   MOVE ' '   REC,R
C                   END
C                   END
C                   END
C                   EXCPT
OINPUT   E
O                   REC   80

- Laird