3 perlebcdic - Considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms
7 An exploration of some of the issues facing Perl programmers
8 on EBCDIC based computers. We do not cover localization,
9 internationalization, or multi byte character set issues other
10 than some discussion of UTF-8 and UTF-EBCDIC.
12 Portions that are still incomplete are marked with XXX.
14 =head1 COMMON CHARACTER CODE SETS
18 The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII or US-ASCII) is a
20 integers running from 0 to 127 (decimal) that imply character
21 interpretation by the display and other systems of computers.
22 The range 0..127 can be covered by setting the bits in a 7-bit binary
23 digit, hence the set is sometimes referred to as a "7-bit ASCII".
24 ASCII was described by the American National Standards Institute
25 document ANSI X3.4-1986. It was also described by ISO 646:1991
26 (with localization for currency symbols). The full ASCII set is
27 given in the table below as the first 128 elements. Languages that
28 can be written adequately with the characters in ASCII include
29 English, Hawaiian, Indonesian, Swahili and some Native American
32 There are many character sets that extend the range of integers
33 from 0..2**7-1 up to 2**8-1, or 8 bit bytes (octets if you prefer).
34 One common one is the ISO 8859-1 character set.
38 The ISO 8859-$n are a collection of character code sets from the
39 International Organization for Standardization (ISO) each of which
40 adds characters to the ASCII set that are typically found in European
41 languages many of which are based on the Roman, or Latin, alphabet.
43 =head2 Latin 1 (ISO 8859-1)
45 A particular 8-bit extension to ASCII that includes grave and acute
46 accented Latin characters. Languages that can employ ISO 8859-1
47 include all the languages covered by ASCII as well as Afrikaans,
48 Albanian, Basque, Catalan, Danish, Faroese, Finnish, Norwegian,
49 Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. Dutch is covered albeit without
50 the ij ligature. French is covered too but without the oe ligature.
51 German can use ISO 8859-1 but must do so without German-style
52 quotation marks. This set is based on Western European extensions
53 to ASCII and is commonly encountered in world wide web work.
54 In IBM character code set identification terminology ISO 8859-1 is
55 also known as CCSID 819 (or sometimes 0819 or even 00819).
59 The Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code refers to a
60 large collection of slightly different single and multi byte
61 coded character sets that are different from ASCII or ISO 8859-1
62 and typically run on host computers. The EBCDIC encodings derive
63 from 8 bit byte extensions of Hollerith punched card encodings.
64 The layout on the cards was such that high bits were set for the
65 upper and lower case alphabet characters [a-z] and [A-Z], but there
66 were gaps within each latin alphabet range.
68 Some IBM EBCDIC character sets may be known by character code set
69 identification numbers (CCSID numbers) or code page numbers. Leading
70 zero digits in CCSID numbers within this document are insignificant.
71 E.g. CCSID 0037 may be referred to as 37 in places.
73 Perl can be compiled on platforms that run any of three commonly used EBCDIC
74 character sets, listed below.
76 =head2 The 13 variant characters
78 Among IBM EBCDIC character code sets there are 13 characters that
79 are often mapped to different integer values. Those characters
80 are known as the 13 "variant" characters and are:
82 \ [ ] { } ^ ~ ! # | $ @ `
84 When Perl is compiled for a platform, it looks at some of these characters to
85 guess which EBCDIC character set the platform uses, and adapts itself
86 accordingly to that platform. If the platform uses a character set that is not
87 one of the three Perl knows about, Perl will either fail to compile, or
88 mistakenly and silently choose one of the three.
93 Character code set ID 0037 is a mapping of the ASCII plus Latin-1
94 characters (i.e. ISO 8859-1) to an EBCDIC set. 0037 is used
95 in North American English locales on the OS/400 operating system
96 that runs on AS/400 computers. CCSID 37 differs from ISO 8859-1
97 in 237 places, in other words they agree on only 19 code point values.
101 Character code set ID 1047 is also a mapping of the ASCII plus
102 Latin-1 characters (i.e. ISO 8859-1) to an EBCDIC set. 1047 is
103 used under Unix System Services for OS/390 or z/OS, and OpenEdition
104 for VM/ESA. CCSID 1047 differs from CCSID 0037 in eight places.
108 The EBCDIC code page in use on Siemens' BS2000 system is distinct from
109 1047 and 0037. It is identified below as the POSIX-BC set.
111 =head2 Unicode code points versus EBCDIC code points
113 In Unicode terminology a I<code point> is the number assigned to a
114 character: for example, in EBCDIC the character "A" is usually assigned
115 the number 193. In Unicode the character "A" is assigned the number 65.
116 This causes a problem with the semantics of the pack/unpack "U", which
117 are supposed to pack Unicode code points to characters and back to numbers.
118 The problem is: which code points to use for code points less than 256?
119 (for 256 and over there's no problem: Unicode code points are used)
120 In EBCDIC, for the low 256 the EBCDIC code points are used. This
121 means that the equivalences
123 pack("U", ord($character)) eq $character
124 unpack("U", $character) == ord $character
126 will hold. (If Unicode code points were applied consistently over
127 all the possible code points, pack("U",ord("A")) would in EBCDIC
128 equal I<A with acute> or chr(101), and unpack("U", "A") would equal
129 65, or I<non-breaking space>, not 193, or ord "A".)
131 =head2 Remaining Perl Unicode problems in EBCDIC
137 Many of the remaining problems seem to be related to case-insensitive matching
141 The extensions Unicode::Collate and Unicode::Normalized are not
142 supported under EBCDIC, likewise for the encoding pragma.
146 =head2 Unicode and UTF
148 UTF stands for C<Unicode Transformation Format>.
149 UTF-8 is an encoding of Unicode into a sequence of 8-bit byte chunks, based on
151 The length of a sequence required to represent a Unicode code point
152 depends on the ordinal number of that code point,
153 with larger numbers requiring more bytes.
154 UTF-EBCDIC is like UTF-8, but based on EBCDIC.
156 In UTF-8, the code points corresponding to the lowest 128
157 ordinal numbers (0 - 127) are the same (or C<invariant>)
158 in UTF-8 or not. They occupy one byte each. All other Unicode code points
159 require more than one byte to be represented in UTF-8.
160 With UTF-EBCDIC, the term C<invariant> has a somewhat different meaning.
161 (First, note that this is very different from the L</13 variant characters>
163 In UTF-EBCDIC, an C<invariant> character or code point
164 is one which takes up exactly one byte encoded, regardless
165 of whether or not the encoding changes its value
166 (which it most likely will).
167 (If you care, the EBCDIC invariants are those characters
168 which correspond to the the ASCII characters, plus those that correspond to
169 the C1 controls (80..9f on ASCII platforms).)
170 A string encoded in UTF-EBCDIC may be longer (but never shorter) than
171 one encoded in UTF-8.
175 Starting from Perl 5.8 you can use the standard new module Encode
176 to translate from EBCDIC to Latin-1 code points.
177 Encode knows about more EBCDIC character sets than Perl can currently
178 be compiled to run on.
180 use Encode 'from_to';
182 my %ebcdic = ( 176 => 'cp37', 95 => 'cp1047', 106 => 'posix-bc' );
184 # $a is in EBCDIC code points
185 from_to($a, $ebcdic{ord '^'}, 'latin1');
186 # $a is ISO 8859-1 code points
188 and from Latin-1 code points to EBCDIC code points
190 use Encode 'from_to';
192 my %ebcdic = ( 176 => 'cp37', 95 => 'cp1047', 106 => 'posix-bc' );
194 # $a is ISO 8859-1 code points
195 from_to($a, 'latin1', $ebcdic{ord '^'});
196 # $a is in EBCDIC code points
198 For doing I/O it is suggested that you use the autotranslating features
199 of PerlIO, see L<perluniintro>.
201 Since version 5.8 Perl uses the new PerlIO I/O library. This enables
202 you to use different encodings per IO channel. For example you may use
205 open($f, ">:encoding(ascii)", "test.ascii");
206 print $f "Hello World!\n";
207 open($f, ">:encoding(cp37)", "test.ebcdic");
208 print $f "Hello World!\n";
209 open($f, ">:encoding(latin1)", "test.latin1");
210 print $f "Hello World!\n";
211 open($f, ">:encoding(utf8)", "test.utf8");
212 print $f "Hello World!\n";
214 to get four files containing "Hello World!\n" in ASCII, CP 37 EBCDIC,
215 ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) (in this example identical to ASCII since only ASCII
216 characters were printed), and
217 UTF-EBCDIC (in this example identical to normal EBCDIC since only characters
218 that don't differ between EBCDIC and UTF-EBCDIC were printed). See the
219 documentation of Encode::PerlIO for details.
221 As the PerlIO layer uses raw IO (bytes) internally, all this totally
222 ignores things like the type of your filesystem (ASCII or EBCDIC).
224 =head1 SINGLE OCTET TABLES
226 The following tables list the ASCII and Latin 1 ordered sets including
227 the subsets: C0 controls (0..31), ASCII graphics (32..7e), delete (7f),
228 C1 controls (80..9f), and Latin-1 (a.k.a. ISO 8859-1) (a0..ff). In the
229 table non-printing control character names as well as the Latin 1
230 extensions to ASCII have been labelled with character names roughly
231 corresponding to I<The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0> albeit with
232 substitutions such as s/LATIN// and s/VULGAR// in all cases,
233 s/CAPITAL LETTER// in some cases, and s/SMALL LETTER ([A-Z])/\l$1/
234 in some other cases (the C<charnames> pragma names unfortunately do
235 not list explicit names for the C0 or C1 control characters). The
236 "names" of the C1 control set (128..159 in ISO 8859-1) listed here are
237 somewhat arbitrary. The differences between the 0037 and 1047 sets are
238 flagged with ***. The differences between the 1047 and POSIX-BC sets
239 are flagged with ###. All ord() numbers listed are decimal. If you
240 would rather see this table listing octal values then run the table
241 (that is, the pod version of this document since this recipe may not
242 work with a pod2_other_format translation) through:
250 perl -ne 'if(/(.{33})(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)/)' \
251 -e '{printf("%s%-9o%-9o%-9o%o\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5)}' perlebcdic.pod
253 If you want to retain the UTF-x code points then in script form you
262 open(FH,"<perlebcdic.pod") or die "Could not open perlebcdic.pod: $!";
264 if (/(.{33})(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\.?(\d*)\s+(\d+)\.?(\d*)/) {
265 if ($7 ne '' && $9 ne '') {
266 printf("%s%-9o%-9o%-9o%-9o%-3o.%-5o%-3o.%o\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7,$8,$9);
269 printf("%s%-9o%-9o%-9o%-9o%-3o.%-5o%o\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7,$8);
272 printf("%s%-9o%-9o%-9o%-9o%-9o%o\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$8);
277 If you would rather see this table listing hexadecimal values then
278 run the table through:
286 perl -ne 'if(/(.{33})(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)/)' \
287 -e '{printf("%s%-9X%-9X%-9X%X\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5)}' perlebcdic.pod
289 Or, in order to retain the UTF-x code points in hexadecimal:
297 open(FH,"<perlebcdic.pod") or die "Could not open perlebcdic.pod: $!";
299 if (/(.{33})(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\.?(\d*)\s+(\d+)\.?(\d*)/) {
300 if ($7 ne '' && $9 ne '') {
301 printf("%s%-9X%-9X%-9X%-9X%-2X.%-6X%-2X.%X\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7,$8,$9);
304 printf("%s%-9X%-9X%-9X%-9X%-2X.%-6X%X\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7,$8);
307 printf("%s%-9X%-9X%-9X%-9X%-9X%X\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$8);
315 chr 0819 0037 1047 POSIX-BC UTF-8 UTF-EBCDIC
316 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
318 <START OF HEADING> 1 1 1 1 1 1
319 <START OF TEXT> 2 2 2 2 2 2
320 <END OF TEXT> 3 3 3 3 3 3
321 <END OF TRANSMISSION> 4 55 55 55 4 55
322 <ENQUIRY> 5 45 45 45 5 45
323 <ACKNOWLEDGE> 6 46 46 46 6 46
324 <BELL> 7 47 47 47 7 47
325 <BACKSPACE> 8 22 22 22 8 22
326 <HORIZONTAL TABULATION> 9 5 5 5 9 5
327 <LINE FEED> 10 37 21 21 10 21 ***
328 <VERTICAL TABULATION> 11 11 11 11 11 11
329 <FORM FEED> 12 12 12 12 12 12
330 <CARRIAGE RETURN> 13 13 13 13 13 13
331 <SHIFT OUT> 14 14 14 14 14 14
332 <SHIFT IN> 15 15 15 15 15 15
333 <DATA LINK ESCAPE> 16 16 16 16 16 16
334 <DEVICE CONTROL ONE> 17 17 17 17 17 17
335 <DEVICE CONTROL TWO> 18 18 18 18 18 18
336 <DEVICE CONTROL THREE> 19 19 19 19 19 19
337 <DEVICE CONTROL FOUR> 20 60 60 60 20 60
338 <NEGATIVE ACKNOWLEDGE> 21 61 61 61 21 61
339 <SYNCHRONOUS IDLE> 22 50 50 50 22 50
340 <END OF TRANSMISSION BLOCK> 23 38 38 38 23 38
341 <CANCEL> 24 24 24 24 24 24
342 <END OF MEDIUM> 25 25 25 25 25 25
343 <SUBSTITUTE> 26 63 63 63 26 63
344 <ESCAPE> 27 39 39 39 27 39
345 <FILE SEPARATOR> 28 28 28 28 28 28
346 <GROUP SEPARATOR> 29 29 29 29 29 29
347 <RECORD SEPARATOR> 30 30 30 30 30 30
348 <UNIT SEPARATOR> 31 31 31 31 31 31
349 <SPACE> 32 64 64 64 32 64
351 " 34 127 127 127 34 127
352 # 35 123 123 123 35 123
354 % 37 108 108 108 37 108
356 ' 39 125 125 125 39 125
361 , 44 107 107 107 44 107
365 0 48 240 240 240 48 240
366 1 49 241 241 241 49 241
367 2 50 242 242 242 50 242
368 3 51 243 243 243 51 243
369 4 52 244 244 244 52 244
370 5 53 245 245 245 53 245
371 6 54 246 246 246 54 246
372 7 55 247 247 247 55 247
373 8 56 248 248 248 56 248
374 9 57 249 249 249 57 249
375 : 58 122 122 122 58 122
378 = 61 126 126 126 61 126
379 > 62 110 110 110 62 110
380 ? 63 111 111 111 63 111
381 @ 64 124 124 124 64 124
382 A 65 193 193 193 65 193
383 B 66 194 194 194 66 194
384 C 67 195 195 195 67 195
385 D 68 196 196 196 68 196
386 E 69 197 197 197 69 197
387 F 70 198 198 198 70 198
388 G 71 199 199 199 71 199
389 H 72 200 200 200 72 200
390 I 73 201 201 201 73 201
391 J 74 209 209 209 74 209
392 K 75 210 210 210 75 210
393 L 76 211 211 211 76 211
394 M 77 212 212 212 77 212
395 N 78 213 213 213 78 213
396 O 79 214 214 214 79 214
397 P 80 215 215 215 80 215
398 Q 81 216 216 216 81 216
399 R 82 217 217 217 82 217
400 S 83 226 226 226 83 226
401 T 84 227 227 227 84 227
402 U 85 228 228 228 85 228
403 V 86 229 229 229 86 229
404 W 87 230 230 230 87 230
405 X 88 231 231 231 88 231
406 Y 89 232 232 232 89 232
407 Z 90 233 233 233 90 233
408 [ 91 186 173 187 91 173 *** ###
409 \ 92 224 224 188 92 224 ###
410 ] 93 187 189 189 93 189 ***
411 ^ 94 176 95 106 94 95 *** ###
412 _ 95 109 109 109 95 109
413 ` 96 121 121 74 96 121 ###
414 a 97 129 129 129 97 129
415 b 98 130 130 130 98 130
416 c 99 131 131 131 99 131
417 d 100 132 132 132 100 132
418 e 101 133 133 133 101 133
419 f 102 134 134 134 102 134
420 g 103 135 135 135 103 135
421 h 104 136 136 136 104 136
422 i 105 137 137 137 105 137
423 j 106 145 145 145 106 145
424 k 107 146 146 146 107 146
425 l 108 147 147 147 108 147
426 m 109 148 148 148 109 148
427 n 110 149 149 149 110 149
428 o 111 150 150 150 111 150
429 p 112 151 151 151 112 151
430 q 113 152 152 152 113 152
431 r 114 153 153 153 114 153
432 s 115 162 162 162 115 162
433 t 116 163 163 163 116 163
434 u 117 164 164 164 117 164
435 v 118 165 165 165 118 165
436 w 119 166 166 166 119 166
437 x 120 167 167 167 120 167
438 y 121 168 168 168 121 168
439 z 122 169 169 169 122 169
440 { 123 192 192 251 123 192 ###
441 | 124 79 79 79 124 79
442 } 125 208 208 253 125 208 ###
443 ~ 126 161 161 255 126 161 ###
444 <DELETE> 127 7 7 7 127 7
445 <C1 0> 128 32 32 32 194.128 32
446 <C1 1> 129 33 33 33 194.129 33
447 <C1 2> 130 34 34 34 194.130 34
448 <C1 3> 131 35 35 35 194.131 35
449 <C1 4> 132 36 36 36 194.132 36
450 <C1 5> 133 21 37 37 194.133 37 ***
451 <C1 6> 134 6 6 6 194.134 6
452 <C1 7> 135 23 23 23 194.135 23
453 <C1 8> 136 40 40 40 194.136 40
454 <C1 9> 137 41 41 41 194.137 41
455 <C1 10> 138 42 42 42 194.138 42
456 <C1 11> 139 43 43 43 194.139 43
457 <C1 12> 140 44 44 44 194.140 44
458 <C1 13> 141 9 9 9 194.141 9
459 <C1 14> 142 10 10 10 194.142 10
460 <C1 15> 143 27 27 27 194.143 27
461 <C1 16> 144 48 48 48 194.144 48
462 <C1 17> 145 49 49 49 194.145 49
463 <C1 18> 146 26 26 26 194.146 26
464 <C1 19> 147 51 51 51 194.147 51
465 <C1 20> 148 52 52 52 194.148 52
466 <C1 21> 149 53 53 53 194.149 53
467 <C1 22> 150 54 54 54 194.150 54
468 <C1 23> 151 8 8 8 194.151 8
469 <C1 24> 152 56 56 56 194.152 56
470 <C1 25> 153 57 57 57 194.153 57
471 <C1 26> 154 58 58 58 194.154 58
472 <C1 27> 155 59 59 59 194.155 59
473 <C1 28> 156 4 4 4 194.156 4
474 <C1 29> 157 20 20 20 194.157 20
475 <C1 30> 158 62 62 62 194.158 62
476 <C1 31> 159 255 255 95 194.159 255 ###
477 <NON-BREAKING SPACE> 160 65 65 65 194.160 128.65
478 <INVERTED EXCLAMATION MARK> 161 170 170 170 194.161 128.66
479 <CENT SIGN> 162 74 74 176 194.162 128.67 ###
480 <POUND SIGN> 163 177 177 177 194.163 128.68
481 <CURRENCY SIGN> 164 159 159 159 194.164 128.69
482 <YEN SIGN> 165 178 178 178 194.165 128.70
483 <BROKEN BAR> 166 106 106 208 194.166 128.71 ###
484 <SECTION SIGN> 167 181 181 181 194.167 128.72
485 <DIAERESIS> 168 189 187 121 194.168 128.73 *** ###
486 <COPYRIGHT SIGN> 169 180 180 180 194.169 128.74
487 <FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR> 170 154 154 154 194.170 128.81
488 <LEFT POINTING GUILLEMET> 171 138 138 138 194.171 128.82
489 <NOT SIGN> 172 95 176 186 194.172 128.83 *** ###
490 <SOFT HYPHEN> 173 202 202 202 194.173 128.84
491 <REGISTERED TRADE MARK SIGN> 174 175 175 175 194.174 128.85
492 <MACRON> 175 188 188 161 194.175 128.86 ###
493 <DEGREE SIGN> 176 144 144 144 194.176 128.87
494 <PLUS-OR-MINUS SIGN> 177 143 143 143 194.177 128.88
495 <SUPERSCRIPT TWO> 178 234 234 234 194.178 128.89
496 <SUPERSCRIPT THREE> 179 250 250 250 194.179 128.98
497 <ACUTE ACCENT> 180 190 190 190 194.180 128.99
498 <MICRO SIGN> 181 160 160 160 194.181 128.100
499 <PARAGRAPH SIGN> 182 182 182 182 194.182 128.101
500 <MIDDLE DOT> 183 179 179 179 194.183 128.102
501 <CEDILLA> 184 157 157 157 194.184 128.103
502 <SUPERSCRIPT ONE> 185 218 218 218 194.185 128.104
503 <MASC. ORDINAL INDICATOR> 186 155 155 155 194.186 128.105
504 <RIGHT POINTING GUILLEMET> 187 139 139 139 194.187 128.106
505 <FRACTION ONE QUARTER> 188 183 183 183 194.188 128.112
506 <FRACTION ONE HALF> 189 184 184 184 194.189 128.113
507 <FRACTION THREE QUARTERS> 190 185 185 185 194.190 128.114
508 <INVERTED QUESTION MARK> 191 171 171 171 194.191 128.115
509 <A WITH GRAVE> 192 100 100 100 195.128 138.65
510 <A WITH ACUTE> 193 101 101 101 195.129 138.66
511 <A WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 194 98 98 98 195.130 138.67
512 <A WITH TILDE> 195 102 102 102 195.131 138.68
513 <A WITH DIAERESIS> 196 99 99 99 195.132 138.69
514 <A WITH RING ABOVE> 197 103 103 103 195.133 138.70
515 <CAPITAL LIGATURE AE> 198 158 158 158 195.134 138.71
516 <C WITH CEDILLA> 199 104 104 104 195.135 138.72
517 <E WITH GRAVE> 200 116 116 116 195.136 138.73
518 <E WITH ACUTE> 201 113 113 113 195.137 138.74
519 <E WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 202 114 114 114 195.138 138.81
520 <E WITH DIAERESIS> 203 115 115 115 195.139 138.82
521 <I WITH GRAVE> 204 120 120 120 195.140 138.83
522 <I WITH ACUTE> 205 117 117 117 195.141 138.84
523 <I WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 206 118 118 118 195.142 138.85
524 <I WITH DIAERESIS> 207 119 119 119 195.143 138.86
525 <CAPITAL LETTER ETH> 208 172 172 172 195.144 138.87
526 <N WITH TILDE> 209 105 105 105 195.145 138.88
527 <O WITH GRAVE> 210 237 237 237 195.146 138.89
528 <O WITH ACUTE> 211 238 238 238 195.147 138.98
529 <O WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 212 235 235 235 195.148 138.99
530 <O WITH TILDE> 213 239 239 239 195.149 138.100
531 <O WITH DIAERESIS> 214 236 236 236 195.150 138.101
532 <MULTIPLICATION SIGN> 215 191 191 191 195.151 138.102
533 <O WITH STROKE> 216 128 128 128 195.152 138.103
534 <U WITH GRAVE> 217 253 253 224 195.153 138.104 ###
535 <U WITH ACUTE> 218 254 254 254 195.154 138.105
536 <U WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 219 251 251 221 195.155 138.106 ###
537 <U WITH DIAERESIS> 220 252 252 252 195.156 138.112
538 <Y WITH ACUTE> 221 173 186 173 195.157 138.113 *** ###
539 <CAPITAL LETTER THORN> 222 174 174 174 195.158 138.114
540 <SMALL LETTER SHARP S> 223 89 89 89 195.159 138.115
541 <a WITH GRAVE> 224 68 68 68 195.160 139.65
542 <a WITH ACUTE> 225 69 69 69 195.161 139.66
543 <a WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 226 66 66 66 195.162 139.67
544 <a WITH TILDE> 227 70 70 70 195.163 139.68
545 <a WITH DIAERESIS> 228 67 67 67 195.164 139.69
546 <a WITH RING ABOVE> 229 71 71 71 195.165 139.70
547 <SMALL LIGATURE ae> 230 156 156 156 195.166 139.71
548 <c WITH CEDILLA> 231 72 72 72 195.167 139.72
549 <e WITH GRAVE> 232 84 84 84 195.168 139.73
550 <e WITH ACUTE> 233 81 81 81 195.169 139.74
551 <e WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 234 82 82 82 195.170 139.81
552 <e WITH DIAERESIS> 235 83 83 83 195.171 139.82
553 <i WITH GRAVE> 236 88 88 88 195.172 139.83
554 <i WITH ACUTE> 237 85 85 85 195.173 139.84
555 <i WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 238 86 86 86 195.174 139.85
556 <i WITH DIAERESIS> 239 87 87 87 195.175 139.86
557 <SMALL LETTER eth> 240 140 140 140 195.176 139.87
558 <n WITH TILDE> 241 73 73 73 195.177 139.88
559 <o WITH GRAVE> 242 205 205 205 195.178 139.89
560 <o WITH ACUTE> 243 206 206 206 195.179 139.98
561 <o WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 244 203 203 203 195.180 139.99
562 <o WITH TILDE> 245 207 207 207 195.181 139.100
563 <o WITH DIAERESIS> 246 204 204 204 195.182 139.101
564 <DIVISION SIGN> 247 225 225 225 195.183 139.102
565 <o WITH STROKE> 248 112 112 112 195.184 139.103
566 <u WITH GRAVE> 249 221 221 192 195.185 139.104 ###
567 <u WITH ACUTE> 250 222 222 222 195.186 139.105
568 <u WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 251 219 219 219 195.187 139.106
569 <u WITH DIAERESIS> 252 220 220 220 195.188 139.112
570 <y WITH ACUTE> 253 141 141 141 195.189 139.113
571 <SMALL LETTER thorn> 254 142 142 142 195.190 139.114
572 <y WITH DIAERESIS> 255 223 223 223 195.191 139.115
574 If you would rather see the above table in CCSID 0037 order rather than
575 ASCII + Latin-1 order then run the table through:
583 perl -ne 'if(/.{33}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}/)'\
585 -e 'END{print map{$_->[0]}' \
586 -e ' sort{$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]}' \
587 -e ' map{[$_,substr($_,42,3)]}@l;}' perlebcdic.pod
589 If you would rather see it in CCSID 1047 order then change the digit
590 42 in the last line to 51, like this:
598 perl -ne 'if(/.{33}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}/)'\
600 -e 'END{print map{$_->[0]}' \
601 -e ' sort{$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]}' \
602 -e ' map{[$_,substr($_,51,3)]}@l;}' perlebcdic.pod
604 If you would rather see it in POSIX-BC order then change the digit
605 51 in the last line to 60, like this:
613 perl -ne 'if(/.{33}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}/)'\
615 -e 'END{print map{$_->[0]}' \
616 -e ' sort{$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]}' \
617 -e ' map{[$_,substr($_,60,3)]}@l;}' perlebcdic.pod
620 =head1 IDENTIFYING CHARACTER CODE SETS
622 To determine the character set you are running under from perl one
623 could use the return value of ord() or chr() to test one or more
624 character values. For example:
626 $is_ascii = "A" eq chr(65);
627 $is_ebcdic = "A" eq chr(193);
629 Also, "\t" is a C<HORIZONTAL TABULATION> character so that:
631 $is_ascii = ord("\t") == 9;
632 $is_ebcdic = ord("\t") == 5;
634 To distinguish EBCDIC code pages try looking at one or more of
635 the characters that differ between them. For example:
637 $is_ebcdic_37 = "\n" eq chr(37);
638 $is_ebcdic_1047 = "\n" eq chr(21);
640 Or better still choose a character that is uniquely encoded in any
641 of the code sets, e.g.:
643 $is_ascii = ord('[') == 91;
644 $is_ebcdic_37 = ord('[') == 186;
645 $is_ebcdic_1047 = ord('[') == 173;
646 $is_ebcdic_POSIX_BC = ord('[') == 187;
648 However, it would be unwise to write tests such as:
650 $is_ascii = "\r" ne chr(13); # WRONG
651 $is_ascii = "\n" ne chr(10); # ILL ADVISED
653 Obviously the first of these will fail to distinguish most ASCII platforms
654 from either a CCSID 0037, a 1047, or a POSIX-BC EBCDIC platform since "\r" eq
655 chr(13) under all of those coded character sets. But note too that
656 because "\n" is chr(13) and "\r" is chr(10) on the MacIntosh (which is an
657 ASCII platform) the second C<$is_ascii> test will lead to trouble there.
659 To determine whether or not perl was built under an EBCDIC
660 code page you can use the Config module like so:
663 $is_ebcdic = $Config{'ebcdic'} eq 'define';
669 In order to convert a string of characters from one character set to
670 another a simple list of numbers, such as in the right columns in the
671 above table, along with perl's tr/// operator is all that is needed.
672 The data in the table are in ASCII order hence the EBCDIC columns
673 provide easy to use ASCII to EBCDIC operations that are also easily
676 For example, to convert ASCII to code page 037 take the output of the second
677 column from the output of recipe 0 (modified to add \\ characters) and use
681 '\000\001\002\003\234\011\206\177\227\215\216\013\014\015\016\017' .
682 '\020\021\022\023\235\205\010\207\030\031\222\217\034\035\036\037' .
683 '\200\201\202\203\204\012\027\033\210\211\212\213\214\005\006\007' .
684 '\220\221\026\223\224\225\226\004\230\231\232\233\024\025\236\032' .
685 '\040\240\342\344\340\341\343\345\347\361\242\056\074\050\053\174' .
686 '\046\351\352\353\350\355\356\357\354\337\041\044\052\051\073\254' .
687 '\055\057\302\304\300\301\303\305\307\321\246\054\045\137\076\077' .
688 '\370\311\312\313\310\315\316\317\314\140\072\043\100\047\075\042' .
689 '\330\141\142\143\144\145\146\147\150\151\253\273\360\375\376\261' .
690 '\260\152\153\154\155\156\157\160\161\162\252\272\346\270\306\244' .
691 '\265\176\163\164\165\166\167\170\171\172\241\277\320\335\336\256' .
692 '\136\243\245\267\251\247\266\274\275\276\133\135\257\250\264\327' .
693 '\173\101\102\103\104\105\106\107\110\111\255\364\366\362\363\365' .
694 '\175\112\113\114\115\116\117\120\121\122\271\373\374\371\372\377' .
695 '\134\367\123\124\125\126\127\130\131\132\262\324\326\322\323\325' .
696 '\060\061\062\063\064\065\066\067\070\071\263\333\334\331\332\237' ;
698 my $ebcdic_string = $ascii_string;
699 eval '$ebcdic_string =~ tr/' . $cp_037 . '/\000-\377/';
701 To convert from EBCDIC 037 to ASCII just reverse the order of the tr///
704 my $ascii_string = $ebcdic_string;
705 eval '$ascii_string =~ tr/\000-\377/' . $cp_037 . '/';
707 Similarly one could take the output of the third column from recipe 0 to
708 obtain a C<$cp_1047> table. The fourth column of the output from recipe
709 0 could provide a C<$cp_posix_bc> table suitable for transcoding as well.
713 XPG operability often implies the presence of an I<iconv> utility
714 available from the shell or from the C library. Consult your system's
715 documentation for information on iconv.
717 On OS/390 or z/OS see the iconv(1) manpage. One way to invoke the iconv
718 shell utility from within perl would be to:
720 # OS/390 or z/OS example
721 $ascii_data = `echo '$ebcdic_data'| iconv -f IBM-1047 -t ISO8859-1`
725 # OS/390 or z/OS example
726 $ebcdic_data = `echo '$ascii_data'| iconv -f ISO8859-1 -t IBM-1047`
728 For other perl based conversion options see the Convert::* modules on CPAN.
732 The OS/390 and z/OS C run time libraries provide _atoe() and _etoa() functions.
734 =head1 OPERATOR DIFFERENCES
736 The C<..> range operator treats certain character ranges with
737 care on EBCDIC platforms. For example the following array
738 will have twenty six elements on either an EBCDIC platform
739 or an ASCII platform:
741 @alphabet = ('A'..'Z'); # $#alphabet == 25
743 The bitwise operators such as & ^ | may return different results
744 when operating on string or character data in a perl program running
745 on an EBCDIC platform than when run on an ASCII platform. Here is
746 an example adapted from the one in L<perlop>:
748 # EBCDIC-based examples
749 print "j p \n" ^ " a h"; # prints "JAPH\n"
750 print "JA" | " ph\n"; # prints "japh\n"
751 print "JAPH\nJunk" & "\277\277\277\277\277"; # prints "japh\n";
752 print 'p N$' ^ " E<H\n"; # prints "Perl\n";
754 An interesting property of the 32 C0 control characters
755 in the ASCII table is that they can "literally" be constructed
756 as control characters in perl, e.g. C<(chr(0) eq "\c@")>
757 C<(chr(1) eq "\cA")>, and so on. Perl on EBCDIC platforms has been
758 ported to take "\c@" to chr(0) and "\cA" to chr(1) as well, but the
759 thirty three characters that result depend on which code page you are
760 using. The table below uses the character names from the previous table
761 but with substitutions such as s/START OF/S.O./; s/END OF /E.O./;
762 s/TRANSMISSION/TRANS./; s/TABULATION/TAB./; s/VERTICAL/VERT./;
763 s/HORIZONTAL/HORIZ./; s/DEVICE CONTROL/D.C./; s/SEPARATOR/SEP./;
764 s/NEGATIVE ACKNOWLEDGE/NEG. ACK./;. The POSIX-BC and 1047 sets are
765 identical throughout this range and differ from the 0037 set at only
766 one spot (21 decimal). Note that the C<LINE FEED> character
767 may be generated by "\cJ" on ASCII platforms but by "\cU" on 1047 or POSIX-BC
768 platforms and cannot be generated as a C<"\c.letter."> control character on
769 0037 platforms. Note also that "\c\\" maps to two characters
772 chr ord 8859-1 0037 1047 && POSIX-BC
773 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
774 "\c?" 127 <DELETE> " " ***><
775 "\c@" 0 <NULL> <NULL> <NULL> ***><
776 "\cA" 1 <S.O. HEADING> <S.O. HEADING> <S.O. HEADING>
777 "\cB" 2 <S.O. TEXT> <S.O. TEXT> <S.O. TEXT>
778 "\cC" 3 <E.O. TEXT> <E.O. TEXT> <E.O. TEXT>
779 "\cD" 4 <E.O. TRANS.> <C1 28> <C1 28>
780 "\cE" 5 <ENQUIRY> <HORIZ. TAB.> <HORIZ. TAB.>
781 "\cF" 6 <ACKNOWLEDGE> <C1 6> <C1 6>
782 "\cG" 7 <BELL> <DELETE> <DELETE>
783 "\cH" 8 <BACKSPACE> <C1 23> <C1 23>
784 "\cI" 9 <HORIZ. TAB.> <C1 13> <C1 13>
785 "\cJ" 10 <LINE FEED> <C1 14> <C1 14>
786 "\cK" 11 <VERT. TAB.> <VERT. TAB.> <VERT. TAB.>
787 "\cL" 12 <FORM FEED> <FORM FEED> <FORM FEED>
788 "\cM" 13 <CARRIAGE RETURN> <CARRIAGE RETURN> <CARRIAGE RETURN>
789 "\cN" 14 <SHIFT OUT> <SHIFT OUT> <SHIFT OUT>
790 "\cO" 15 <SHIFT IN> <SHIFT IN> <SHIFT IN>
791 "\cP" 16 <DATA LINK ESCAPE> <DATA LINK ESCAPE> <DATA LINK ESCAPE>
792 "\cQ" 17 <D.C. ONE> <D.C. ONE> <D.C. ONE>
793 "\cR" 18 <D.C. TWO> <D.C. TWO> <D.C. TWO>
794 "\cS" 19 <D.C. THREE> <D.C. THREE> <D.C. THREE>
795 "\cT" 20 <D.C. FOUR> <C1 29> <C1 29>
796 "\cU" 21 <NEG. ACK.> <C1 5> <LINE FEED> ***
797 "\cV" 22 <SYNCHRONOUS IDLE> <BACKSPACE> <BACKSPACE>
798 "\cW" 23 <E.O. TRANS. BLOCK> <C1 7> <C1 7>
799 "\cX" 24 <CANCEL> <CANCEL> <CANCEL>
800 "\cY" 25 <E.O. MEDIUM> <E.O. MEDIUM> <E.O. MEDIUM>
801 "\cZ" 26 <SUBSTITUTE> <C1 18> <C1 18>
802 "\c[" 27 <ESCAPE> <C1 15> <C1 15>
803 "\c\\" 28 <FILE SEP.>\ <FILE SEP.>\ <FILE SEP.>\
804 "\c]" 29 <GROUP SEP.> <GROUP SEP.> <GROUP SEP.>
805 "\c^" 30 <RECORD SEP.> <RECORD SEP.> <RECORD SEP.> ***><
806 "\c_" 31 <UNIT SEP.> <UNIT SEP.> <UNIT SEP.> ***><
809 =head1 FUNCTION DIFFERENCES
815 chr() must be given an EBCDIC code number argument to yield a desired
816 character return value on an EBCDIC platform. For example:
818 $CAPITAL_LETTER_A = chr(193);
822 ord() will return EBCDIC code number values on an EBCDIC platform.
825 $the_number_193 = ord("A");
829 The c and C templates for pack() are dependent upon character set
830 encoding. Examples of usage on EBCDIC include:
832 $foo = pack("CCCC",193,194,195,196);
834 $foo = pack("C4",193,194,195,196);
837 $foo = pack("ccxxcc",193,194,195,196);
842 One must be careful with scalars and strings that are passed to
843 print that contain ASCII encodings. One common place
844 for this to occur is in the output of the MIME type header for
845 CGI script writing. For example, many perl programming guides
846 recommend something similar to:
848 print "Content-type:\ttext/html\015\012\015\012";
849 # this may be wrong on EBCDIC
851 Under the IBM OS/390 USS Web Server or WebSphere on z/OS for example
852 you should instead write that as:
854 print "Content-type:\ttext/html\r\n\r\n"; # OK for DGW et alia
856 That is because the translation from EBCDIC to ASCII is done
857 by the web server in this case (such code will not be appropriate for
858 the Macintosh however). Consult your web server's documentation for
863 The formats that can convert characters to numbers and vice versa
864 will be different from their ASCII counterparts when executed
865 on an EBCDIC platform. Examples include:
867 printf("%c%c%c",193,194,195); # prints ABC
871 EBCDIC sort results may differ from ASCII sort results especially for
872 mixed case strings. This is discussed in more detail below.
876 See the discussion of printf() above. An example of the use
879 $CAPITAL_LETTER_A = sprintf("%c",193);
883 See the discussion of pack() above.
887 =head1 REGULAR EXPRESSION DIFFERENCES
889 As of perl 5.005_03 the letter range regular expression such as
890 [A-Z] and [a-z] have been especially coded to not pick up gap
891 characters. For example, characters such as E<ocirc> C<o WITH CIRCUMFLEX>
892 that lie between I and J would not be matched by the
893 regular expression range C</[H-K]/>. This works in
894 the other direction, too, if either of the range end points is
895 explicitly numeric: C<[\x89-\x91]> will match C<\x8e>, even
896 though C<\x89> is C<i> and C<\x91 > is C<j>, and C<\x8e>
897 is a gap character from the alphabetic viewpoint.
899 If you do want to match the alphabet gap characters in a single octet
900 regular expression try matching the hex or octal code such
901 as C</\313/> on EBCDIC or C</\364/> on ASCII platforms to
902 have your regular expression match C<o WITH CIRCUMFLEX>.
904 Another construct to be wary of is the inappropriate use of hex or
905 octal constants in regular expressions. Consider the following
909 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
910 $char =~ /[\000-\037]/;
914 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
915 $char =~ /[\040-\176]/;
919 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
924 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
925 $char =~ /[\200-\237]/;
929 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
930 $char =~ /[\240-\377]/;
933 The above would be adequate if the concern was only with numeric code points.
934 However, the concern may be with characters rather than code points
935 and on an EBCDIC platform it may be desirable for constructs such as
936 C<if (is_print_ascii("A")) {print "A is a printable character\n";}> to print
937 out the expected message. One way to represent the above collection
938 of character classification subs that is capable of working across the
939 four coded character sets discussed in this document is as follows:
942 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
943 if (ord('^')==94) { # ascii
944 return $char =~ /[\000-\037]/;
946 if (ord('^')==176) { # 37
947 return $char =~ /[\000-\003\067\055-\057\026\005\045\013-\023\074\075\062\046\030\031\077\047\034-\037]/;
949 if (ord('^')==95 || ord('^')==106) { # 1047 || posix-bc
950 return $char =~ /[\000-\003\067\055-\057\026\005\025\013-\023\074\075\062\046\030\031\077\047\034-\037]/;
955 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
956 $char =~ /[ !"\#\$%&'()*+,\-.\/0-9:;<=>?\@A-Z[\\\]^_`a-z{|}~]/;
960 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
961 if (ord('^')==94) { # ascii
962 return $char eq "\177";
965 return $char eq "\007";
970 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
971 if (ord('^')==94) { # ascii
972 return $char =~ /[\200-\237]/;
974 if (ord('^')==176) { # 37
975 return $char =~ /[\040-\044\025\006\027\050-\054\011\012\033\060\061\032\063-\066\010\070-\073\040\024\076\377]/;
977 if (ord('^')==95) { # 1047
978 return $char =~ /[\040-\045\006\027\050-\054\011\012\033\060\061\032\063-\066\010\070-\073\040\024\076\377]/;
980 if (ord('^')==106) { # posix-bc
982 /[\040-\045\006\027\050-\054\011\012\033\060\061\032\063-\066\010\070-\073\040\024\076\137]/;
987 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
988 if (ord('^')==94) { # ascii
989 return $char =~ /[\240-\377]/;
991 if (ord('^')==176) { # 37
993 /[\101\252\112\261\237\262\152\265\275\264\232\212\137\312\257\274\220\217\352\372\276\240\266\263\235\332\233\213\267\270\271\253\144\145\142\146\143\147\236\150\164\161-\163\170\165-\167\254\151\355\356\353\357\354\277\200\375\376\373\374\255\256\131\104\105\102\106\103\107\234\110\124\121-\123\130\125-\127\214\111\315\316\313\317\314\341\160\335\336\333\334\215\216\337]/;
995 if (ord('^')==95) { # 1047
997 /[\101\252\112\261\237\262\152\265\273\264\232\212\260\312\257\274\220\217\352\372\276\240\266\263\235\332\233\213\267\270\271\253\144\145\142\146\143\147\236\150\164\161-\163\170\165-\167\254\151\355\356\353\357\354\277\200\375\376\373\374\272\256\131\104\105\102\106\103\107\234\110\124\121-\123\130\125-\127\214\111\315\316\313\317\314\341\160\335\336\333\334\215\216\337]/;
999 if (ord('^')==106) { # posix-bc
1001 /[\101\252\260\261\237\262\320\265\171\264\232\212\272\312\257\241\220\217\352\372\276\240\266\263\235\332\233\213\267\270\271\253\144\145\142\146\143\147\236\150\164\161-\163\170\165-\167\254\151\355\356\353\357\354\277\200\340\376\335\374\255\256\131\104\105\102\106\103\107\234\110\124\121-\123\130\125-\127\214\111\315\316\313\317\314\341\160\300\336\333\334\215\216\337]/;
1005 Note however that only the C<Is_ascii_print()> sub is really independent
1006 of coded character set. Another way to write C<Is_latin_1()> would be
1007 to use the characters in the range explicitly:
1010 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
1011 $char =~ /[ ¡¢£¤¥¦§¨©ª«¬®¯°±²³´µ¶·¸¹º»¼½¾¿ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖ×ØÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö÷øùúûüýþÿ]/;
1014 Although that form may run into trouble in network transit (due to the
1015 presence of 8 bit characters) or on non ISO-Latin character sets.
1019 Most socket programming assumes ASCII character encodings in network
1020 byte order. Exceptions can include CGI script writing under a
1021 host web server where the server may take care of translation for you.
1022 Most host web servers convert EBCDIC data to ISO-8859-1 or Unicode on
1027 One big difference between ASCII based character sets and EBCDIC ones
1028 are the relative positions of upper and lower case letters and the
1029 letters compared to the digits. If sorted on an ASCII based platform the
1030 two letter abbreviation for a physician comes before the two letter
1033 @sorted = sort(qw(Dr. dr.)); # @sorted holds ('Dr.','dr.') on ASCII,
1034 # but ('dr.','Dr.') on EBCDIC
1036 The property of lower case before uppercase letters in EBCDIC is
1037 even carried to the Latin 1 EBCDIC pages such as 0037 and 1047.
1038 An example would be that E<Euml> C<E WITH DIAERESIS> (203) comes
1039 before E<euml> C<e WITH DIAERESIS> (235) on an ASCII platform, but
1040 the latter (83) comes before the former (115) on an EBCDIC platform.
1041 (Astute readers will note that the upper case version of E<szlig>
1042 C<SMALL LETTER SHARP S> is simply "SS" and that the upper case version of
1043 E<yuml> C<y WITH DIAERESIS> is not in the 0..255 range but it is
1044 at U+x0178 in Unicode, or C<"\x{178}"> in a Unicode enabled Perl).
1046 The sort order will cause differences between results obtained on
1047 ASCII platforms versus EBCDIC platforms. What follows are some suggestions
1048 on how to deal with these differences.
1050 =head2 Ignore ASCII vs. EBCDIC sort differences.
1052 This is the least computationally expensive strategy. It may require
1053 some user education.
1055 =head2 MONO CASE then sort data.
1057 In order to minimize the expense of mono casing mixed test try to
1058 C<tr///> towards the character set case most employed within the data.
1059 If the data are primarily UPPERCASE non Latin 1 then apply tr/[a-z]/[A-Z]/
1060 then sort(). If the data are primarily lowercase non Latin 1 then
1061 apply tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/ before sorting. If the data are primarily UPPERCASE
1062 and include Latin-1 characters then apply:
1065 tr/[àáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöøùúûüýþ]/[ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝÞ]/;
1068 then sort(). Do note however that such Latin-1 manipulation does not
1069 address the E<yuml> C<y WITH DIAERESIS> character that will remain at
1070 code point 255 on ASCII platforms, but 223 on most EBCDIC platforms
1071 where it will sort to a place less than the EBCDIC numerals. With a
1072 Unicode enabled Perl you might try:
1076 The strategy of mono casing data before sorting does not preserve the case
1077 of the data and may not be acceptable for that reason.
1079 =head2 Convert, sort data, then re convert.
1081 This is the most expensive proposition that does not employ a network
1084 =head2 Perform sorting on one type of platform only.
1086 This strategy can employ a network connection. As such
1087 it would be computationally expensive.
1089 =head1 TRANSFORMATION FORMATS
1091 There are a variety of ways of transforming data with an intra character set
1092 mapping that serve a variety of purposes. Sorting was discussed in the
1093 previous section and a few of the other more popular mapping techniques are
1096 =head2 URL decoding and encoding
1098 Note that some URLs have hexadecimal ASCII code points in them in an
1099 attempt to overcome character or protocol limitation issues. For example
1100 the tilde character is not on every keyboard hence a URL of the form:
1102 http://www.pvhp.com/~pvhp/
1104 may also be expressed as either of:
1106 http://www.pvhp.com/%7Epvhp/
1108 http://www.pvhp.com/%7epvhp/
1110 where 7E is the hexadecimal ASCII code point for '~'. Here is an example
1111 of decoding such a URL under CCSID 1047:
1113 $url = 'http://www.pvhp.com/%7Epvhp/';
1114 # this array assumes code page 1047
1116 0, 1, 2, 3, 55, 45, 46, 47, 22, 5, 21, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
1117 16, 17, 18, 19, 60, 61, 50, 38, 24, 25, 63, 39, 28, 29, 30, 31,
1118 64, 90,127,123, 91,108, 80,125, 77, 93, 92, 78,107, 96, 75, 97,
1119 240,241,242,243,244,245,246,247,248,249,122, 94, 76,126,110,111,
1120 124,193,194,195,196,197,198,199,200,201,209,210,211,212,213,214,
1121 215,216,217,226,227,228,229,230,231,232,233,173,224,189, 95,109,
1122 121,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,145,146,147,148,149,150,
1123 151,152,153,162,163,164,165,166,167,168,169,192, 79,208,161, 7,
1124 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 6, 23, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 9, 10, 27,
1125 48, 49, 26, 51, 52, 53, 54, 8, 56, 57, 58, 59, 4, 20, 62,255,
1126 65,170, 74,177,159,178,106,181,187,180,154,138,176,202,175,188,
1127 144,143,234,250,190,160,182,179,157,218,155,139,183,184,185,171,
1128 100,101, 98,102, 99,103,158,104,116,113,114,115,120,117,118,119,
1129 172,105,237,238,235,239,236,191,128,253,254,251,252,186,174, 89,
1130 68, 69, 66, 70, 67, 71,156, 72, 84, 81, 82, 83, 88, 85, 86, 87,
1131 140, 73,205,206,203,207,204,225,112,221,222,219,220,141,142,223
1133 $url =~ s/%([0-9a-fA-F]{2})/pack("c",$a2e_1047[hex($1)])/ge;
1135 Conversely, here is a partial solution for the task of encoding such
1136 a URL under the 1047 code page:
1138 $url = 'http://www.pvhp.com/~pvhp/';
1139 # this array assumes code page 1047
1141 0, 1, 2, 3,156, 9,134,127,151,141,142, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
1142 16, 17, 18, 19,157, 10, 8,135, 24, 25,146,143, 28, 29, 30, 31,
1143 128,129,130,131,132,133, 23, 27,136,137,138,139,140, 5, 6, 7,
1144 144,145, 22,147,148,149,150, 4,152,153,154,155, 20, 21,158, 26,
1145 32,160,226,228,224,225,227,229,231,241,162, 46, 60, 40, 43,124,
1146 38,233,234,235,232,237,238,239,236,223, 33, 36, 42, 41, 59, 94,
1147 45, 47,194,196,192,193,195,197,199,209,166, 44, 37, 95, 62, 63,
1148 248,201,202,203,200,205,206,207,204, 96, 58, 35, 64, 39, 61, 34,
1149 216, 97, 98, 99,100,101,102,103,104,105,171,187,240,253,254,177,
1150 176,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,170,186,230,184,198,164,
1151 181,126,115,116,117,118,119,120,121,122,161,191,208, 91,222,174,
1152 172,163,165,183,169,167,182,188,189,190,221,168,175, 93,180,215,
1153 123, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73,173,244,246,242,243,245,
1154 125, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82,185,251,252,249,250,255,
1155 92,247, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90,178,212,214,210,211,213,
1156 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57,179,219,220,217,218,159
1158 # The following regular expression does not address the
1159 # mappings for: ('.' => '%2E', '/' => '%2F', ':' => '%3A')
1160 $url =~ s/([\t "#%&\(\),;<=>\?\@\[\\\]^`{|}~])/sprintf("%%%02X",$e2a_1047[ord($1)])/ge;
1162 where a more complete solution would split the URL into components
1163 and apply a full s/// substitution only to the appropriate parts.
1165 In the remaining examples a @e2a or @a2e array may be employed
1166 but the assignment will not be shown explicitly. For code page 1047
1167 you could use the @a2e_1047 or @e2a_1047 arrays just shown.
1169 =head2 uu encoding and decoding
1171 The C<u> template to pack() or unpack() will render EBCDIC data in EBCDIC
1172 characters equivalent to their ASCII counterparts. For example, the
1173 following will print "Yes indeed\n" on either an ASCII or EBCDIC computer:
1175 $all_byte_chrs = '';
1176 for (0..255) { $all_byte_chrs .= chr($_); }
1177 $uuencode_byte_chrs = pack('u', $all_byte_chrs);
1178 ($uu = <<'ENDOFHEREDOC') =~ s/^\s*//gm;
1179 M``$"`P0%!@<("0H+#`T.#Q`1$A,4%187&!D:&QP='A\@(2(C)"4F)R@I*BLL
1180 M+2XO,#$R,S0U-C<X.3H[/#T^/T!!0D-$149'2$E*2TQ-3D]045)35%565UA9
1181 M6EM<75Y?8&%B8V1E9F=H:6IK;&UN;W!Q<G-T=79W>'EZ>WQ]?G^`@8*#A(6&
1182 MAXB)BHN,C8Z/D)&2DY25EI>8F9J;G)V>GZ"AHJ.DI::GJ*FJJZRMKJ^PL;*S
1183 MM+6VM[BYNKN\O;Z_P,'"P\3%QL?(R<K+S,W.S]#1TM/4U=;7V-G:V]S=WM_@
1184 ?X>+CY.7FY^CIZNOL[>[O\/'R\_3U]O?X^?K[_/W^_P``
1186 if ($uuencode_byte_chrs eq $uu) {
1189 $uudecode_byte_chrs = unpack('u', $uuencode_byte_chrs);
1190 if ($uudecode_byte_chrs eq $all_byte_chrs) {
1194 Here is a very spartan uudecoder that will work on EBCDIC provided
1195 that the @e2a array is filled in appropriately:
1197 #!/usr/local/bin/perl
1198 @e2a = ( # this must be filled in
1200 $_ = <> until ($mode,$file) = /^begin\s*(\d*)\s*(\S*)/;
1201 open(OUT, "> $file") if $file ne "";
1205 next unless int(((($e2a[ord()] - 32 ) & 077) + 2) / 3) ==
1207 print OUT unpack("u", $_);
1210 chmod oct($mode), $file;
1213 =head2 Quoted-Printable encoding and decoding
1215 On ASCII encoded platforms it is possible to strip characters outside of
1216 the printable set using:
1218 # This QP encoder works on ASCII only
1219 $qp_string =~ s/([=\x00-\x1F\x80-\xFF])/sprintf("=%02X",ord($1))/ge;
1221 Whereas a QP encoder that works on both ASCII and EBCDIC platforms
1222 would look somewhat like the following (where the EBCDIC branch @e2a
1223 array is omitted for brevity):
1225 if (ord('A') == 65) { # ASCII
1226 $delete = "\x7F"; # ASCII
1227 @e2a = (0 .. 255) # ASCII to ASCII identity map
1230 $delete = "\x07"; # EBCDIC
1231 @e2a = # EBCDIC to ASCII map (as shown above)
1234 s/([^ !"\#\$%&'()*+,\-.\/0-9:;<>?\@A-Z[\\\]^_`a-z{|}~$delete])/sprintf("=%02X",$e2a[ord($1)])/ge;
1236 (although in production code the substitutions might be done
1237 in the EBCDIC branch with the @e2a array and separately in the
1238 ASCII branch without the expense of the identity map).
1240 Such QP strings can be decoded with:
1242 # This QP decoder is limited to ASCII only
1243 $string =~ s/=([0-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f])/chr hex $1/ge;
1244 $string =~ s/=[\n\r]+$//;
1246 Whereas a QP decoder that works on both ASCII and EBCDIC platforms
1247 would look somewhat like the following (where the @a2e array is
1248 omitted for brevity):
1250 $string =~ s/=([0-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f])/chr $a2e[hex $1]/ge;
1251 $string =~ s/=[\n\r]+$//;
1253 =head2 Caesarian ciphers
1255 The practice of shifting an alphabet one or more characters for encipherment
1256 dates back thousands of years and was explicitly detailed by Gaius Julius
1257 Caesar in his B<Gallic Wars> text. A single alphabet shift is sometimes
1258 referred to as a rotation and the shift amount is given as a number $n after
1259 the string 'rot' or "rot$n". Rot0 and rot26 would designate identity maps
1260 on the 26 letter English version of the Latin alphabet. Rot13 has the
1261 interesting property that alternate subsequent invocations are identity maps
1262 (thus rot13 is its own non-trivial inverse in the group of 26 alphabet
1263 rotations). Hence the following is a rot13 encoder and decoder that will
1264 work on ASCII and EBCDIC platforms:
1266 #!/usr/local/bin/perl
1269 tr/n-za-mN-ZA-M/a-zA-Z/;
1275 perl -ne 'tr/n-za-mN-ZA-M/a-zA-Z/;print'
1278 =head1 Hashing order and checksums
1280 To the extent that it is possible to write code that depends on
1281 hashing order there may be differences between hashes as stored
1282 on an ASCII based platform and hashes stored on an EBCDIC based platform.
1285 =head1 I18N AND L10N
1287 Internationalization(I18N) and localization(L10N) are supported at least
1288 in principle even on EBCDIC platforms. The details are system dependent
1289 and discussed under the L<perlebcdic/OS ISSUES> section below.
1291 =head1 MULTI OCTET CHARACTER SETS
1293 Perl may work with an internal UTF-EBCDIC encoding form for wide characters
1294 on EBCDIC platforms in a manner analogous to the way that it works with
1295 the UTF-8 internal encoding form on ASCII based platforms.
1297 Legacy multi byte EBCDIC code pages XXX.
1301 There may be a few system dependent issues
1302 of concern to EBCDIC Perl programmers.
1310 The PASE environment is runtime environment for OS/400 that can run
1311 executables built for PowerPC AIX in OS/400, see L<perlos400>. PASE
1312 is ASCII-based, not EBCDIC-based as the ILE.
1322 Perl runs under Unix Systems Services or USS.
1328 B<chcp> is supported as a shell utility for displaying and changing
1329 one's code page. See also L<chcp>.
1331 =item dataset access
1333 For sequential data set access try:
1335 my @ds_records = `cat //DSNAME`;
1339 my @ds_records = `cat //'HLQ.DSNAME'`;
1341 See also the OS390::Stdio module on CPAN.
1343 =item OS/390, z/OS iconv
1345 B<iconv> is supported as both a shell utility and a C RTL routine.
1346 See also the iconv(1) and iconv(3) manual pages.
1350 On OS/390 or z/OS see L<locale> for information on locales. The L10N files
1351 are in F</usr/nls/locale>. $Config{d_setlocale} is 'define' on OS/390
1366 This pod document contains literal Latin 1 characters and may encounter
1367 translation difficulties. In particular one popular nroff implementation
1368 was known to strip accented characters to their unaccented counterparts
1369 while attempting to view this document through the B<pod2man> program
1370 (for example, you may see a plain C<y> rather than one with a diaeresis
1371 as in E<yuml>). Another nroff truncated the resultant manpage at
1372 the first occurrence of 8 bit characters.
1374 Not all shells will allow multiple C<-e> string arguments to perl to
1375 be concatenated together properly as recipes 0, 2, 4, 5, and 6 might
1380 L<perllocale>, L<perlfunc>, L<perlunicode>, L<utf8>.
1384 L<http://anubis.dkuug.dk/i18n/charmaps>
1386 L<http://www.unicode.org/>
1388 L<http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/>
1390 L<http://www.wps.com/texts/codes/>
1391 B<ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Infiltration> Tom Jennings,
1394 B<The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0> The Unicode Consortium, Lisa Moore ed.,
1395 ISBN 0-201-61633-5, Addison Wesley Developers Press, February 2000.
1397 B<CDRA: IBM - Character Data Representation Architecture -
1398 Reference and Registry>, IBM SC09-2190-00, December 1996.
1400 "Demystifying Character Sets", Andrea Vine, Multilingual Computing
1401 & Technology, B<#26 Vol. 10 Issue 4>, August/September 1999;
1402 ISSN 1523-0309; Multilingual Computing Inc. Sandpoint ID, USA.
1404 B<Codes, Ciphers, and Other Cryptic and Clandestine Communication>
1405 Fred B. Wrixon, ISBN 1-57912-040-7, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers,
1408 L<http://www.bobbemer.com/P-BIT.HTM>
1409 B<IBM - EBCDIC and the P-bit; The biggest Computer Goof Ever> Robert Bemer.
1413 15 April 2001: added UTF-8 and UTF-EBCDIC to main table, pvhp.
1417 Peter Prymmer pvhp@best.com wrote this in 1999 and 2000
1418 with CCSID 0819 and 0037 help from Chris Leach and
1419 AndrE<eacute> Pirard A.Pirard@ulg.ac.be as well as POSIX-BC
1420 help from Thomas Dorner Thomas.Dorner@start.de.
1421 Thanks also to Vickie Cooper, Philip Newton, William Raffloer, and
1422 Joe Smith. Trademarks, registered trademarks, service marks and
1423 registered service marks used in this document are the property of
1424 their respective owners.