Well Skip, the quotient is not zero. I use x'05' quite regularly when
creating a file that will become TXT then Excel. My favorite is writing
a record with DF/SORT:
OUTFIL OUTREC=(01,10,X'05',11,10,X'05') etc etc
So that's a few hundred occurrences over lots of my years which bears
out your math, but maybe a few others here have done something similar.
On 1/10/2014 4:19 PM, Skip Robinson wrote:
To evaluate the existence of an EBCDIC tab character, let's take the total
number of instances in which any member of this list has ever in their
career had occasion to code X'05'in a z/OS file for any functional purpose
whatever. (For me, that's +0). Then divide that value by the cumulative
years of experience among all the members of this list. (For me, that's a
nontrivial number.)
If that quotient would suffice to persuade Virginia that yes, there is an
EBCDIC tab character, then I will cave. Otherwise I stand by my assertion.
.
.
JO.Skip Robinson
Southern California Edison Company
Electric Dragon Team Paddler
SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager
626-302-7535 Office
323-715-0595 Mobile
[email protected]
From: Charles Mills <[email protected]>
To: [email protected],
Date: 01/10/2014 01:49 PM
Subject: Re: Mainframe "culture" question - how display a tab
character?
Sent by: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]>
the absence of tabs in the conventional EBCDIC character set
It occurs to me that what may be meant is "the absence of
control-character-based formatting in mainframe usage." On UNIX and
Windows
systems, fields are often delimited by tabs and records very often
delimited
by some combination of CR and/or LF. Page formatting is often done with
embedded control characters. On the mainframe, fields are typically fixed
length or of some indicated length, and records are fixed length or
described by control words. Reports are formatted with blanks between
fields, and the pagination controlled with characters that do not
correspond
to the nominal EBCDIC control characters.
Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Skip Robinson
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2014 12:05 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Mainframe "culture" question - how display a tab character?
An intriguing question in view of the absence of tabs in the conventional
EBCDIC character set. My emulator (Vista3270) is pretty rich, but even if
I
could somehow type a tab character into an MVS file, what would z/OS do
with
it?
As to your question, I would prefer
Parm2=FOO<tab>BAR
because any single character representation would mislead the reader into
typing *that* character. Like the old joke about not finding the "any"
key.
.
.
JO.Skip Robinson
Southern California Edison Company
Electric Dragon Team Paddler
SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager
626-302-7535 Office
323-715-0595 Mobile
[email protected]
From: Charles Mills <[email protected]>
To: [email protected],
Date: 01/10/2014 11:48 AM
Subject: Mainframe "culture" question - how display a tab
character?
Sent by: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]>
I have a started task that (among many other things) will display its own
parameters, something like
Parm1=WIDGET
Parm2=FOOBAR
At present all of the values it displays are printable characters. Due to
an
enhancement it is possible that one of the parameters will contain a
horizontal tab character. A C programmer would expect the display to
become
Parm2=FOO\tBAR. MS Word would say FOO^tBAR. But those of you who are "real
mainframers through and through," how would you expect a tab to be
represented in a display? The value is going to be all printable
characters
99% of the time so going to hex and character is probably a clumsy
approach.
Parm2=FOO<tab>BAR
Parm2=FOO\tBAR
Parm2=FOO^tBAR
Or what?
Thanks,
Charles
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