Fujitsu® Data Converter for SPARC Architecture is a tool for converting data files from one format to another. You define the  file formats and Data Converter performs the task of moving the data between these file formats such as COBOL data files and CSV (comma separated values) format files. It can also convert between ASCII and EBCDIC character code systems or use any character conversion mapping you specify.

  • Move data between different COBOL file formats.
  • Load data files from text files.
  • Move COBOL data to and from spreadsheets and databases.
  • Convert data from one code set to another (e.g. ASCII to EBCDIC)

Supported File Formats

  • Sequential
  • Line Sequential (Text file)
  • Indexed
  • Relative
  • Binary
  • Comma-Separated Values (CSV, also known as an RDB Loader File)

Supported Character Sets

  • ASCII
  • EBCDIC
  • Other code conversions by editing the User Defined Conversion Tables

Supported Data Types

All COBOL data types such as packed decimal and binary data

Invocation Mode

Conversions are controlled using a command line providing the ability to work in batch mode.

  • Eases the task of bringing data from other platforms for processing by NetCOBOL applications. You don’t have to create special programs to do most conversions – just use the COBOL data definitions to guide Data Converter to do the work for you.
  • As conversion options include omitting fields written to the output file, converting from one data type to another, and specifying extraction conditions so only matching records are output, Data Converter can save you time and money writing many commonly required file processing programs.

The table below lists key features and benefits of Data Converter.

Feature Summary Detail of Feature Benefit of Feature
Text file conversions Converts text files containing either fixed- or variable-length records between EBCDIC and ASCII code systems and formats. Enables exchange of source and text files between EBCDIC and ASCII systems, or migration of code and text from EBCDIC systems to the Sun Solaris platform.
Data file conversions

COBOL products supported:

  • NetCOBOL for SPARC Architecture
  • Sun National COBOL

COBOL file organizations supported:

  • Record sequential
  • Line sequential
  • Relative
  • Indexed

Other file formats:

  • CSV suitable for passing data to/from databases
  • Output to text files

Character set conversions between:

  • EBCDIC
  • ASCII
  • User-defined conversion tables

Supported data types:

  • All COBOL-specific data types such as display numeric items with included signs and packed decimal.
  • Note that the converter is able to perform conversions between data types as well as changing field lengths.

Provides the ability to perform most of the conversions required in typical COBOL application use, such as:

  • Migrating data from one system to another
  • Sharing data between systems
  • Loading test files
  • Unloading data
Handling multiple record formats 

The Data Converter can handle files that contain multiple record formats. By defining a format selection control statement you can specify which record format to use for different record types.

This feature also lets you extract records of a particular format/type.

 Important ability for supporting all existing files.

The following examples let you see the features of Data Converter at work.

Converting EBCDIC COBOL Source to an ASCII Text File
Converting EBCDIC Text to an ASCII Text File
Converting a COBOL Indexed File to a CSV File

Converting EBCDIC COBOL Source to an ASCII Text File

This example illustrates how you would convert an 80-byte (fixed-length) EBCDIC text file (the format used for COBOL source) to an ASCII text file (used for source files in the Sun Solaris environment). The conversion is shown schematically in the following diagram.

To perform the conversion (on the Sun Solaris machine) you would enter the following command:

dataconvf -f SRC -itype cobolsrc -icode ebcdic -otype text

You can see that the Data Converter command line takes options in the form "-option-name" followed by a space and the option parameter.

Data Converter creates the output file name by appending ".out" to the input file name.

You don't need to specify the output code type (using the -ocode option) as it defaults to ASCII.

Converting EBCDIC Text to an ASCII Text File

This example is very similar to the last but illustrates that Data Converter can handle variable length EBCDIC text files that specify the length of each record in a Record Descriptor Word (RDW) in the first four bytes of each record.

The process is illustrated in the following diagram:

And is performed using the following command:

dataconvf -f TEXT -itype text -icode ebcdic -otype text

Converting a COBOL Indexed File to a CSV File

In this example we show how you would convert a COBOL indexed file to a CSV file, as illustrated in the following diagram:

The command line for this operation is:

dataconvf -f AMASTER -itype cblfile -icobfl idx,1,20 -otype rdb -csv1

Notice that the data definition file, "AMASTER.format" is not specified in the command line - Data Converter looks for AMASTER.format automatically. AMASTER.format is a typical COBOL record definition as shown below. Debugging lines (those marked with D in column 7) will not be used as part of the record definition.

When you specify an indexed file (-icobfl idx) you also specify the key offset and length - in this example we're assuming ITEM1 is the key in the above record.

Different types of CSV file can be created - one suitable for importing to Oracle (-csv1) and another suitable for importing to INFORMIX (-csv2) databases.

When you import the AMASTER.out CSV file into a databse the table definition would look like this:

CREATE TABLE S1.AMASTER
(ITEM1 CHAR(30),
ITEM2 INTEGER,
ITEM3 INTEGER,
ITEM4 CHAR(8),
ITEM5 INTEGER)

Back to Top

  1. Can I use Data Converter to convert files from other COBOL vendor file formats?
  2. Does Data Converter for SPARC Architecture have an interactive interface like the Windows version?
  3. What file formats can Data Converter work with?
  4. Can Data Converter help me move COBOL data to other data systems, such as relational data bases or products like Microsoft Excel?

  1. Can I use Data Converter to convert files from other COBOL vendor file formats?

    Answer: Yes - provided that you can get the data into a fixed-length sequential format and that you are not using any vendor-specific data types. Many vendors provide file maintenance utilities that will create sequential files from structured file formats such as indexed and relative files. Once you have the data in a sequential file format, you can have Data Converter load the data into the equivalent NetCOBOL (previously called Fujitsu COBOL) file structure.

  2. Does Data Converter for SPARC Architecture have an interactive interface like the Windows version?

    Answer: I want to bring some EBCDIC data files to the Solaris Operating Environment, can Data Converter help me convert this data to ASCII? Answer: Yes - Data Converter for SPARC Architecture provides options for specifying whether the input and output files are in ASCII or EBCDIC. The conversion is sensitive to the record layout, so non-character fields are not converted.

  3. What file formats can Data Converter work with?

    Answer: Data Converter for SPARC Architecture supports text, binary, COBOL Sequential, Relative and Indexed files as well as the comma separated values (CSV) format in which all data is output in character form with commas separating each field.

  4. Can Data Converter help me move COBOL data to other data systems, such as relational data bases or products like Microsoft Excel?

    Answer: By converting files to the comma separated values (CSV) format you can exchange data with a number of data bases and data handling products. The CSV format is widely supported as a means of importing and exporting data from data bases. Is the command line for Data Converter consistent with versions on other platforms? Why is Data Converter not available for Linux or HPUX?

       
       
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