17.10 Code Page Considerations

If characters are not properly translated when loaded from the IBM i and into Visual LANSA, you need to review the code page definitions on the IBM i.

Code pages are sets of definitions for each character on your keyboard. It is possible that the characters used on the IBM i (5250 keyboards) are not properly mapped to characters used on the PC.

If characters are not properly translated when executing Visual LANSA generated applications, you need to review the conversion tables and files defined to Visual LANSA. It is possible that the characters used for one operating system may be different for another operating system.

Characters which are commonly wrong include # or @.

It is very important that you determine the correct character set conversions right from the start. Spend the time considering your requirements before beginning to build any applications, otherwise you will need to re-build your applications each time you change the conversion tables.

There are three places that you should review for character set conversion:

1.      The x_defppp.h header file (where ppp = partition identifier) in each partition. The contents of this file are included in 17.11 Regional Settings.

Each time you change the x_defppp.h header file you will have to re-build all your "entry point" processes (i.e. the ones through which you enter your applications).

2.      LANSA SuperServer conversion tables defined in Built-In Function DEFINE_OS_400_SERVER.

3.      Translation tables specified using PCMAINT.