5 perlebcdic - Considerations for running Perl on EBCDIC platforms
9 An exploration of some of the issues facing Perl programmers
10 on EBCDIC based computers. We do not cover localization,
11 internationalization, or multi byte character set issues other
12 than some discussion of UTF-8 and UTF-EBCDIC.
14 Portions that are still incomplete are marked with XXX.
16 Perl used to work on EBCDIC machines, but there are now areas of the code where
17 it doesn't. If you want to use Perl on an EBCDIC machine, please let us know
18 by sending mail to perlbug@perl.org
20 =head1 COMMON CHARACTER CODE SETS
24 The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII or US-ASCII) is a
26 integers running from 0 to 127 (decimal) that imply character
27 interpretation by the display and other systems of computers.
28 The range 0..127 can be covered by setting the bits in a 7-bit binary
29 digit, hence the set is sometimes referred to as a "7-bit ASCII".
30 ASCII was described by the American National Standards Institute
31 document ANSI X3.4-1986. It was also described by ISO 646:1991
32 (with localization for currency symbols). The full ASCII set is
33 given in the table below as the first 128 elements. Languages that
34 can be written adequately with the characters in ASCII include
35 English, Hawaiian, Indonesian, Swahili and some Native American
38 There are many character sets that extend the range of integers
39 from 0..2**7-1 up to 2**8-1, or 8 bit bytes (octets if you prefer).
40 One common one is the ISO 8859-1 character set.
44 The ISO 8859-$n are a collection of character code sets from the
45 International Organization for Standardization (ISO) each of which
46 adds characters to the ASCII set that are typically found in European
47 languages many of which are based on the Roman, or Latin, alphabet.
49 =head2 Latin 1 (ISO 8859-1)
51 A particular 8-bit extension to ASCII that includes grave and acute
52 accented Latin characters. Languages that can employ ISO 8859-1
53 include all the languages covered by ASCII as well as Afrikaans,
54 Albanian, Basque, Catalan, Danish, Faroese, Finnish, Norwegian,
55 Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. Dutch is covered albeit without
56 the ij ligature. French is covered too but without the oe ligature.
57 German can use ISO 8859-1 but must do so without German-style
58 quotation marks. This set is based on Western European extensions
59 to ASCII and is commonly encountered in world wide web work.
60 In IBM character code set identification terminology ISO 8859-1 is
61 also known as CCSID 819 (or sometimes 0819 or even 00819).
65 The Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code refers to a
66 large collection of single and multi byte coded character sets that are
67 different from ASCII or ISO 8859-1 and are all slightly different from each
68 other; they typically run on host computers. The EBCDIC encodings derive from
69 8 bit byte extensions of Hollerith punched card encodings. The layout on the
70 cards was such that high bits were set for the upper and lower case alphabet
71 characters [a-z] and [A-Z], but there were gaps within each Latin alphabet
74 Some IBM EBCDIC character sets may be known by character code set
75 identification numbers (CCSID numbers) or code page numbers.
77 Perl can be compiled on platforms that run any of three commonly used EBCDIC
78 character sets, listed below.
80 =head2 The 13 variant characters
82 Among IBM EBCDIC character code sets there are 13 characters that
83 are often mapped to different integer values. Those characters
84 are known as the 13 "variant" characters and are:
86 \ [ ] { } ^ ~ ! # | $ @ `
88 When Perl is compiled for a platform, it looks at some of these characters to
89 guess which EBCDIC character set the platform uses, and adapts itself
90 accordingly to that platform. If the platform uses a character set that is not
91 one of the three Perl knows about, Perl will either fail to compile, or
92 mistakenly and silently choose one of the three.
97 Character code set ID 0037 is a mapping of the ASCII plus Latin-1
98 characters (i.e. ISO 8859-1) to an EBCDIC set. 0037 is used
99 in North American English locales on the OS/400 operating system
100 that runs on AS/400 computers. CCSID 0037 differs from ISO 8859-1
101 in 237 places, in other words they agree on only 19 code point values.
105 Character code set ID 1047 is also a mapping of the ASCII plus
106 Latin-1 characters (i.e. ISO 8859-1) to an EBCDIC set. 1047 is
107 used under Unix System Services for OS/390 or z/OS, and OpenEdition
108 for VM/ESA. CCSID 1047 differs from CCSID 0037 in eight places.
112 The EBCDIC code page in use on Siemens' BS2000 system is distinct from
113 1047 and 0037. It is identified below as the POSIX-BC set.
115 =head2 Unicode code points versus EBCDIC code points
117 In Unicode terminology a I<code point> is the number assigned to a
118 character: for example, in EBCDIC the character "A" is usually assigned
119 the number 193. In Unicode the character "A" is assigned the number 65.
120 This causes a problem with the semantics of the pack/unpack "U", which
121 are supposed to pack Unicode code points to characters and back to numbers.
122 The problem is: which code points to use for code points less than 256?
123 (for 256 and over there's no problem: Unicode code points are used)
124 In EBCDIC, for the low 256 the EBCDIC code points are used. This
125 means that the equivalences
127 pack("U", ord($character)) eq $character
128 unpack("U", $character) == ord $character
130 will hold. (If Unicode code points were applied consistently over
131 all the possible code points, pack("U",ord("A")) would in EBCDIC
132 equal I<A with acute> or chr(101), and unpack("U", "A") would equal
133 65, or I<non-breaking space>, not 193, or ord "A".)
135 =head2 Remaining Perl Unicode problems in EBCDIC
141 Many of the remaining problems seem to be related to case-insensitive matching
145 The extensions Unicode::Collate and Unicode::Normalized are not
146 supported under EBCDIC, likewise for the encoding pragma.
150 =head2 Unicode and UTF
152 UTF stands for C<Unicode Transformation Format>.
153 UTF-8 is an encoding of Unicode into a sequence of 8-bit byte chunks, based on
155 The length of a sequence required to represent a Unicode code point
156 depends on the ordinal number of that code point,
157 with larger numbers requiring more bytes.
158 UTF-EBCDIC is like UTF-8, but based on EBCDIC.
160 You may see the term C<invariant> character or code point.
161 This simply means that the character has the same numeric
162 value when encoded as when not.
163 (Note that this is a very different concept from L</The 13 variant characters>
165 For example, the ordinal value of 'A' is 193 in most EBCDIC code pages,
166 and also is 193 when encoded in UTF-EBCDIC.
167 All variant code points occupy at least two bytes when encoded.
168 In UTF-8, the code points corresponding to the lowest 128
169 ordinal numbers (0 - 127: the ASCII characters) are invariant.
170 In UTF-EBCDIC, there are 160 invariant characters.
171 (If you care, the EBCDIC invariants are those characters
172 which have ASCII equivalents, plus those that correspond to
173 the C1 controls (80..9f on ASCII platforms).)
175 A string encoded in UTF-EBCDIC may be longer (but never shorter) than
176 one encoded in UTF-8.
180 Starting from Perl 5.8 you can use the standard new module Encode
181 to translate from EBCDIC to Latin-1 code points.
182 Encode knows about more EBCDIC character sets than Perl can currently
183 be compiled to run on.
185 use Encode 'from_to';
187 my %ebcdic = ( 176 => 'cp37', 95 => 'cp1047', 106 => 'posix-bc' );
189 # $a is in EBCDIC code points
190 from_to($a, $ebcdic{ord '^'}, 'latin1');
191 # $a is ISO 8859-1 code points
193 and from Latin-1 code points to EBCDIC code points
195 use Encode 'from_to';
197 my %ebcdic = ( 176 => 'cp37', 95 => 'cp1047', 106 => 'posix-bc' );
199 # $a is ISO 8859-1 code points
200 from_to($a, 'latin1', $ebcdic{ord '^'});
201 # $a is in EBCDIC code points
203 For doing I/O it is suggested that you use the autotranslating features
204 of PerlIO, see L<perluniintro>.
206 Since version 5.8 Perl uses the new PerlIO I/O library. This enables
207 you to use different encodings per IO channel. For example you may use
210 open($f, ">:encoding(ascii)", "test.ascii");
211 print $f "Hello World!\n";
212 open($f, ">:encoding(cp37)", "test.ebcdic");
213 print $f "Hello World!\n";
214 open($f, ">:encoding(latin1)", "test.latin1");
215 print $f "Hello World!\n";
216 open($f, ">:encoding(utf8)", "test.utf8");
217 print $f "Hello World!\n";
219 to get four files containing "Hello World!\n" in ASCII, CP 0037 EBCDIC,
220 ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) (in this example identical to ASCII since only ASCII
221 characters were printed), and
222 UTF-EBCDIC (in this example identical to normal EBCDIC since only characters
223 that don't differ between EBCDIC and UTF-EBCDIC were printed). See the
224 documentation of Encode::PerlIO for details.
226 As the PerlIO layer uses raw IO (bytes) internally, all this totally
227 ignores things like the type of your filesystem (ASCII or EBCDIC).
229 =head1 SINGLE OCTET TABLES
231 The following tables list the ASCII and Latin 1 ordered sets including
232 the subsets: C0 controls (0..31), ASCII graphics (32..7e), delete (7f),
233 C1 controls (80..9f), and Latin-1 (a.k.a. ISO 8859-1) (a0..ff). In the
234 table non-printing control character names as well as the Latin 1
235 extensions to ASCII have been labelled with character names roughly
236 corresponding to I<The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0> albeit with
237 substitutions such as s/LATIN// and s/VULGAR// in all cases,
238 s/CAPITAL LETTER// in some cases, and s/SMALL LETTER ([A-Z])/\l$1/
239 in some other cases. The "names" of the controls listed here are
240 the Unicode Version 1 names, except for the few that don't have names, in which
241 case the names in the Wikipedia article were used
242 (L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C0_and_C1_control_codes>.
243 The differences between the 0037 and 1047 sets are
244 flagged with ***. The differences between the 1047 and POSIX-BC sets
245 are flagged with ###. All ord() numbers listed are decimal. If you
246 would rather see this table listing octal values then run the table
247 (that is, the pod version of this document since this recipe may not
248 work with a pod2_other_format translation) through:
256 perl -ne 'if(/(.{43})(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)/)' \
257 -e '{printf("%s%-9o%-9o%-9o%o\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5)}' perlebcdic.pod
259 If you want to retain the UTF-x code points then in script form you
268 open(FH,"<perlebcdic.pod") or die "Could not open perlebcdic.pod: $!";
270 if (/(.{43})(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\.?(\d*)\s+(\d+)\.?(\d*)/) {
271 if ($7 ne '' && $9 ne '') {
272 printf("%s%-9o%-9o%-9o%-9o%-3o.%-5o%-3o.%o\n",
273 $1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7,$8,$9);
276 printf("%s%-9o%-9o%-9o%-9o%-3o.%-5o%o\n",
277 $1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7,$8);
280 printf("%s%-9o%-9o%-9o%-9o%-9o%o\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$8);
285 If you would rather see this table listing hexadecimal values then
286 run the table through:
294 perl -ne 'if(/(.{43})(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)/)' \
295 -e '{printf("%s%-9X%-9X%-9X%X\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5)}' perlebcdic.pod
297 Or, in order to retain the UTF-x code points in hexadecimal:
305 open(FH,"<perlebcdic.pod") or die "Could not open perlebcdic.pod: $!";
307 if (/(.{43})(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+)\.?(\d*)\s+(\d+)\.?(\d*)/) {
308 if ($7 ne '' && $9 ne '') {
309 printf("%s%-9X%-9X%-9X%-9X%-2X.%-6X%-2X.%X\n",
310 $1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7,$8,$9);
313 printf("%s%-9X%-9X%-9X%-9X%-2X.%-6X%X\n",
314 $1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7,$8);
317 printf("%s%-9X%-9X%-9X%-9X%-9X%X\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$8);
323 ISO 8859-1 CCSID CCSID CCSID 1047
324 chr CCSID 0819 0037 1047 POSIX-BC UTF-8 UTF-EBCDIC
325 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
327 <START OF HEADING> 1 1 1 1 1 1
328 <START OF TEXT> 2 2 2 2 2 2
329 <END OF TEXT> 3 3 3 3 3 3
330 <END OF TRANSMISSION> 4 55 55 55 4 55
331 <ENQUIRY> 5 45 45 45 5 45
332 <ACKNOWLEDGE> 6 46 46 46 6 46
333 <BELL> 7 47 47 47 7 47
334 <BACKSPACE> 8 22 22 22 8 22
335 <HORIZONTAL TABULATION> 9 5 5 5 9 5
336 <LINE FEED> 10 37 21 21 10 21 ***
337 <VERTICAL TABULATION> 11 11 11 11 11 11
338 <FORM FEED> 12 12 12 12 12 12
339 <CARRIAGE RETURN> 13 13 13 13 13 13
340 <SHIFT OUT> 14 14 14 14 14 14
341 <SHIFT IN> 15 15 15 15 15 15
342 <DATA LINK ESCAPE> 16 16 16 16 16 16
343 <DEVICE CONTROL ONE> 17 17 17 17 17 17
344 <DEVICE CONTROL TWO> 18 18 18 18 18 18
345 <DEVICE CONTROL THREE> 19 19 19 19 19 19
346 <DEVICE CONTROL FOUR> 20 60 60 60 20 60
347 <NEGATIVE ACKNOWLEDGE> 21 61 61 61 21 61
348 <SYNCHRONOUS IDLE> 22 50 50 50 22 50
349 <END OF TRANSMISSION BLOCK> 23 38 38 38 23 38
350 <CANCEL> 24 24 24 24 24 24
351 <END OF MEDIUM> 25 25 25 25 25 25
352 <SUBSTITUTE> 26 63 63 63 26 63
353 <ESCAPE> 27 39 39 39 27 39
354 <FILE SEPARATOR> 28 28 28 28 28 28
355 <GROUP SEPARATOR> 29 29 29 29 29 29
356 <RECORD SEPARATOR> 30 30 30 30 30 30
357 <UNIT SEPARATOR> 31 31 31 31 31 31
358 <SPACE> 32 64 64 64 32 64
360 " 34 127 127 127 34 127
361 # 35 123 123 123 35 123
363 % 37 108 108 108 37 108
365 ' 39 125 125 125 39 125
370 , 44 107 107 107 44 107
374 0 48 240 240 240 48 240
375 1 49 241 241 241 49 241
376 2 50 242 242 242 50 242
377 3 51 243 243 243 51 243
378 4 52 244 244 244 52 244
379 5 53 245 245 245 53 245
380 6 54 246 246 246 54 246
381 7 55 247 247 247 55 247
382 8 56 248 248 248 56 248
383 9 57 249 249 249 57 249
384 : 58 122 122 122 58 122
387 = 61 126 126 126 61 126
388 > 62 110 110 110 62 110
389 ? 63 111 111 111 63 111
390 @ 64 124 124 124 64 124
391 A 65 193 193 193 65 193
392 B 66 194 194 194 66 194
393 C 67 195 195 195 67 195
394 D 68 196 196 196 68 196
395 E 69 197 197 197 69 197
396 F 70 198 198 198 70 198
397 G 71 199 199 199 71 199
398 H 72 200 200 200 72 200
399 I 73 201 201 201 73 201
400 J 74 209 209 209 74 209
401 K 75 210 210 210 75 210
402 L 76 211 211 211 76 211
403 M 77 212 212 212 77 212
404 N 78 213 213 213 78 213
405 O 79 214 214 214 79 214
406 P 80 215 215 215 80 215
407 Q 81 216 216 216 81 216
408 R 82 217 217 217 82 217
409 S 83 226 226 226 83 226
410 T 84 227 227 227 84 227
411 U 85 228 228 228 85 228
412 V 86 229 229 229 86 229
413 W 87 230 230 230 87 230
414 X 88 231 231 231 88 231
415 Y 89 232 232 232 89 232
416 Z 90 233 233 233 90 233
417 [ 91 186 173 187 91 173 *** ###
418 \ 92 224 224 188 92 224 ###
419 ] 93 187 189 189 93 189 ***
420 ^ 94 176 95 106 94 95 *** ###
421 _ 95 109 109 109 95 109
422 ` 96 121 121 74 96 121 ###
423 a 97 129 129 129 97 129
424 b 98 130 130 130 98 130
425 c 99 131 131 131 99 131
426 d 100 132 132 132 100 132
427 e 101 133 133 133 101 133
428 f 102 134 134 134 102 134
429 g 103 135 135 135 103 135
430 h 104 136 136 136 104 136
431 i 105 137 137 137 105 137
432 j 106 145 145 145 106 145
433 k 107 146 146 146 107 146
434 l 108 147 147 147 108 147
435 m 109 148 148 148 109 148
436 n 110 149 149 149 110 149
437 o 111 150 150 150 111 150
438 p 112 151 151 151 112 151
439 q 113 152 152 152 113 152
440 r 114 153 153 153 114 153
441 s 115 162 162 162 115 162
442 t 116 163 163 163 116 163
443 u 117 164 164 164 117 164
444 v 118 165 165 165 118 165
445 w 119 166 166 166 119 166
446 x 120 167 167 167 120 167
447 y 121 168 168 168 121 168
448 z 122 169 169 169 122 169
449 { 123 192 192 251 123 192 ###
450 | 124 79 79 79 124 79
451 } 125 208 208 253 125 208 ###
452 ~ 126 161 161 255 126 161 ###
453 <DELETE> 127 7 7 7 127 7
454 <PADDING CHARACTER> 128 32 32 32 194.128 32
455 <HIGH OCTET PRESET> 129 33 33 33 194.129 33
456 <BREAK PERMITTED HERE> 130 34 34 34 194.130 34
457 <NO BREAK HERE> 131 35 35 35 194.131 35
458 <INDEX> 132 36 36 36 194.132 36
459 <NEXT LINE> 133 21 37 37 194.133 37 ***
460 <START OF SELECTED AREA> 134 6 6 6 194.134 6
461 <END OF SELECTED AREA> 135 23 23 23 194.135 23
462 <CHARACTER TABULATION SET> 136 40 40 40 194.136 40
463 <CHARACTER TABULATION WITH JUSTIFICATION> 137 41 41 41 194.137 41
464 <LINE TABULATION SET> 138 42 42 42 194.138 42
465 <PARTIAL LINE FORWARD> 139 43 43 43 194.139 43
466 <PARTIAL LINE BACKWARD> 140 44 44 44 194.140 44
467 <REVERSE LINE FEED> 141 9 9 9 194.141 9
468 <SINGLE SHIFT TWO> 142 10 10 10 194.142 10
469 <SINGLE SHIFT THREE> 143 27 27 27 194.143 27
470 <DEVICE CONTROL STRING> 144 48 48 48 194.144 48
471 <PRIVATE USE ONE> 145 49 49 49 194.145 49
472 <PRIVATE USE TWO> 146 26 26 26 194.146 26
473 <SET TRANSMIT STATE> 147 51 51 51 194.147 51
474 <CANCEL CHARACTER> 148 52 52 52 194.148 52
475 <MESSAGE WAITING> 149 53 53 53 194.149 53
476 <START OF GUARDED AREA> 150 54 54 54 194.150 54
477 <END OF GUARDED AREA> 151 8 8 8 194.151 8
478 <START OF STRING> 152 56 56 56 194.152 56
479 <SINGLE GRAPHIC CHARACTER INTRODUCER> 153 57 57 57 194.153 57
480 <SINGLE CHARACTER INTRODUCER> 154 58 58 58 194.154 58
481 <CONTROL SEQUENCE INTRODUCER> 155 59 59 59 194.155 59
482 <STRING TERMINATOR> 156 4 4 4 194.156 4
483 <OPERATING SYSTEM COMMAND> 157 20 20 20 194.157 20
484 <PRIVACY MESSAGE> 158 62 62 62 194.158 62
485 <APPLICATION PROGRAM COMMAND> 159 255 255 95 194.159 255 ###
486 <NON-BREAKING SPACE> 160 65 65 65 194.160 128.65
487 <INVERTED EXCLAMATION MARK> 161 170 170 170 194.161 128.66
488 <CENT SIGN> 162 74 74 176 194.162 128.67 ###
489 <POUND SIGN> 163 177 177 177 194.163 128.68
490 <CURRENCY SIGN> 164 159 159 159 194.164 128.69
491 <YEN SIGN> 165 178 178 178 194.165 128.70
492 <BROKEN BAR> 166 106 106 208 194.166 128.71 ###
493 <SECTION SIGN> 167 181 181 181 194.167 128.72
494 <DIAERESIS> 168 189 187 121 194.168 128.73 *** ###
495 <COPYRIGHT SIGN> 169 180 180 180 194.169 128.74
496 <FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR> 170 154 154 154 194.170 128.81
497 <LEFT POINTING GUILLEMET> 171 138 138 138 194.171 128.82
498 <NOT SIGN> 172 95 176 186 194.172 128.83 *** ###
499 <SOFT HYPHEN> 173 202 202 202 194.173 128.84
500 <REGISTERED TRADE MARK SIGN> 174 175 175 175 194.174 128.85
501 <MACRON> 175 188 188 161 194.175 128.86 ###
502 <DEGREE SIGN> 176 144 144 144 194.176 128.87
503 <PLUS-OR-MINUS SIGN> 177 143 143 143 194.177 128.88
504 <SUPERSCRIPT TWO> 178 234 234 234 194.178 128.89
505 <SUPERSCRIPT THREE> 179 250 250 250 194.179 128.98
506 <ACUTE ACCENT> 180 190 190 190 194.180 128.99
507 <MICRO SIGN> 181 160 160 160 194.181 128.100
508 <PARAGRAPH SIGN> 182 182 182 182 194.182 128.101
509 <MIDDLE DOT> 183 179 179 179 194.183 128.102
510 <CEDILLA> 184 157 157 157 194.184 128.103
511 <SUPERSCRIPT ONE> 185 218 218 218 194.185 128.104
512 <MASC. ORDINAL INDICATOR> 186 155 155 155 194.186 128.105
513 <RIGHT POINTING GUILLEMET> 187 139 139 139 194.187 128.106
514 <FRACTION ONE QUARTER> 188 183 183 183 194.188 128.112
515 <FRACTION ONE HALF> 189 184 184 184 194.189 128.113
516 <FRACTION THREE QUARTERS> 190 185 185 185 194.190 128.114
517 <INVERTED QUESTION MARK> 191 171 171 171 194.191 128.115
518 <A WITH GRAVE> 192 100 100 100 195.128 138.65
519 <A WITH ACUTE> 193 101 101 101 195.129 138.66
520 <A WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 194 98 98 98 195.130 138.67
521 <A WITH TILDE> 195 102 102 102 195.131 138.68
522 <A WITH DIAERESIS> 196 99 99 99 195.132 138.69
523 <A WITH RING ABOVE> 197 103 103 103 195.133 138.70
524 <CAPITAL LIGATURE AE> 198 158 158 158 195.134 138.71
525 <C WITH CEDILLA> 199 104 104 104 195.135 138.72
526 <E WITH GRAVE> 200 116 116 116 195.136 138.73
527 <E WITH ACUTE> 201 113 113 113 195.137 138.74
528 <E WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 202 114 114 114 195.138 138.81
529 <E WITH DIAERESIS> 203 115 115 115 195.139 138.82
530 <I WITH GRAVE> 204 120 120 120 195.140 138.83
531 <I WITH ACUTE> 205 117 117 117 195.141 138.84
532 <I WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 206 118 118 118 195.142 138.85
533 <I WITH DIAERESIS> 207 119 119 119 195.143 138.86
534 <CAPITAL LETTER ETH> 208 172 172 172 195.144 138.87
535 <N WITH TILDE> 209 105 105 105 195.145 138.88
536 <O WITH GRAVE> 210 237 237 237 195.146 138.89
537 <O WITH ACUTE> 211 238 238 238 195.147 138.98
538 <O WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 212 235 235 235 195.148 138.99
539 <O WITH TILDE> 213 239 239 239 195.149 138.100
540 <O WITH DIAERESIS> 214 236 236 236 195.150 138.101
541 <MULTIPLICATION SIGN> 215 191 191 191 195.151 138.102
542 <O WITH STROKE> 216 128 128 128 195.152 138.103
543 <U WITH GRAVE> 217 253 253 224 195.153 138.104 ###
544 <U WITH ACUTE> 218 254 254 254 195.154 138.105
545 <U WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 219 251 251 221 195.155 138.106 ###
546 <U WITH DIAERESIS> 220 252 252 252 195.156 138.112
547 <Y WITH ACUTE> 221 173 186 173 195.157 138.113 *** ###
548 <CAPITAL LETTER THORN> 222 174 174 174 195.158 138.114
549 <SMALL LETTER SHARP S> 223 89 89 89 195.159 138.115
550 <a WITH GRAVE> 224 68 68 68 195.160 139.65
551 <a WITH ACUTE> 225 69 69 69 195.161 139.66
552 <a WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 226 66 66 66 195.162 139.67
553 <a WITH TILDE> 227 70 70 70 195.163 139.68
554 <a WITH DIAERESIS> 228 67 67 67 195.164 139.69
555 <a WITH RING ABOVE> 229 71 71 71 195.165 139.70
556 <SMALL LIGATURE ae> 230 156 156 156 195.166 139.71
557 <c WITH CEDILLA> 231 72 72 72 195.167 139.72
558 <e WITH GRAVE> 232 84 84 84 195.168 139.73
559 <e WITH ACUTE> 233 81 81 81 195.169 139.74
560 <e WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 234 82 82 82 195.170 139.81
561 <e WITH DIAERESIS> 235 83 83 83 195.171 139.82
562 <i WITH GRAVE> 236 88 88 88 195.172 139.83
563 <i WITH ACUTE> 237 85 85 85 195.173 139.84
564 <i WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 238 86 86 86 195.174 139.85
565 <i WITH DIAERESIS> 239 87 87 87 195.175 139.86
566 <SMALL LETTER eth> 240 140 140 140 195.176 139.87
567 <n WITH TILDE> 241 73 73 73 195.177 139.88
568 <o WITH GRAVE> 242 205 205 205 195.178 139.89
569 <o WITH ACUTE> 243 206 206 206 195.179 139.98
570 <o WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 244 203 203 203 195.180 139.99
571 <o WITH TILDE> 245 207 207 207 195.181 139.100
572 <o WITH DIAERESIS> 246 204 204 204 195.182 139.101
573 <DIVISION SIGN> 247 225 225 225 195.183 139.102
574 <o WITH STROKE> 248 112 112 112 195.184 139.103
575 <u WITH GRAVE> 249 221 221 192 195.185 139.104 ###
576 <u WITH ACUTE> 250 222 222 222 195.186 139.105
577 <u WITH CIRCUMFLEX> 251 219 219 219 195.187 139.106
578 <u WITH DIAERESIS> 252 220 220 220 195.188 139.112
579 <y WITH ACUTE> 253 141 141 141 195.189 139.113
580 <SMALL LETTER thorn> 254 142 142 142 195.190 139.114
581 <y WITH DIAERESIS> 255 223 223 223 195.191 139.115
583 If you would rather see the above table in CCSID 0037 order rather than
584 ASCII + Latin-1 order then run the table through:
592 perl -ne 'if(/.{43}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}/)'\
594 -e 'END{print map{$_->[0]}' \
595 -e ' sort{$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]}' \
596 -e ' map{[$_,substr($_,52,3)]}@l;}' perlebcdic.pod
598 If you would rather see it in CCSID 1047 order then change the number
599 52 in the last line to 61, like this:
607 perl -ne 'if(/.{43}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}/)'\
609 -e 'END{print map{$_->[0]}' \
610 -e ' sort{$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]}' \
611 -e ' map{[$_,substr($_,61,3)]}@l;}' perlebcdic.pod
613 If you would rather see it in POSIX-BC order then change the number
614 61 in the last line to 70, like this:
622 perl -ne 'if(/.{43}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}\s{6,8}\d{1,3}/)'\
624 -e 'END{print map{$_->[0]}' \
625 -e ' sort{$a->[1] <=> $b->[1]}' \
626 -e ' map{[$_,substr($_,70,3)]}@l;}' perlebcdic.pod
629 =head1 IDENTIFYING CHARACTER CODE SETS
631 To determine the character set you are running under from perl one
632 could use the return value of ord() or chr() to test one or more
633 character values. For example:
635 $is_ascii = "A" eq chr(65);
636 $is_ebcdic = "A" eq chr(193);
638 Also, "\t" is a C<HORIZONTAL TABULATION> character so that:
640 $is_ascii = ord("\t") == 9;
641 $is_ebcdic = ord("\t") == 5;
643 To distinguish EBCDIC code pages try looking at one or more of
644 the characters that differ between them. For example:
646 $is_ebcdic_37 = "\n" eq chr(37);
647 $is_ebcdic_1047 = "\n" eq chr(21);
649 Or better still choose a character that is uniquely encoded in any
650 of the code sets, e.g.:
652 $is_ascii = ord('[') == 91;
653 $is_ebcdic_37 = ord('[') == 186;
654 $is_ebcdic_1047 = ord('[') == 173;
655 $is_ebcdic_POSIX_BC = ord('[') == 187;
657 However, it would be unwise to write tests such as:
659 $is_ascii = "\r" ne chr(13); # WRONG
660 $is_ascii = "\n" ne chr(10); # ILL ADVISED
662 Obviously the first of these will fail to distinguish most ASCII platforms
663 from either a CCSID 0037, a 1047, or a POSIX-BC EBCDIC platform since "\r" eq
664 chr(13) under all of those coded character sets. But note too that
665 because "\n" is chr(13) and "\r" is chr(10) on the MacIntosh (which is an
666 ASCII platform) the second C<$is_ascii> test will lead to trouble there.
668 To determine whether or not perl was built under an EBCDIC
669 code page you can use the Config module like so:
672 $is_ebcdic = $Config{'ebcdic'} eq 'define';
678 In order to convert a string of characters from one character set to
679 another a simple list of numbers, such as in the right columns in the
680 above table, along with perl's tr/// operator is all that is needed.
681 The data in the table are in ASCII order hence the EBCDIC columns
682 provide easy to use ASCII to EBCDIC operations that are also easily
685 For example, to convert ASCII to code page 037 take the output of the second
686 column from the output of recipe 0 (modified to add \\ characters) and use
690 '\000\001\002\003\234\011\206\177\227\215\216\013\014\015\016\017' .
691 '\020\021\022\023\235\205\010\207\030\031\222\217\034\035\036\037' .
692 '\200\201\202\203\204\012\027\033\210\211\212\213\214\005\006\007' .
693 '\220\221\026\223\224\225\226\004\230\231\232\233\024\025\236\032' .
694 '\040\240\342\344\340\341\343\345\347\361\242\056\074\050\053\174' .
695 '\046\351\352\353\350\355\356\357\354\337\041\044\052\051\073\254' .
696 '\055\057\302\304\300\301\303\305\307\321\246\054\045\137\076\077' .
697 '\370\311\312\313\310\315\316\317\314\140\072\043\100\047\075\042' .
698 '\330\141\142\143\144\145\146\147\150\151\253\273\360\375\376\261' .
699 '\260\152\153\154\155\156\157\160\161\162\252\272\346\270\306\244' .
700 '\265\176\163\164\165\166\167\170\171\172\241\277\320\335\336\256' .
701 '\136\243\245\267\251\247\266\274\275\276\133\135\257\250\264\327' .
702 '\173\101\102\103\104\105\106\107\110\111\255\364\366\362\363\365' .
703 '\175\112\113\114\115\116\117\120\121\122\271\373\374\371\372\377' .
704 '\134\367\123\124\125\126\127\130\131\132\262\324\326\322\323\325' .
705 '\060\061\062\063\064\065\066\067\070\071\263\333\334\331\332\237' ;
707 my $ebcdic_string = $ascii_string;
708 eval '$ebcdic_string =~ tr/' . $cp_037 . '/\000-\377/';
710 To convert from EBCDIC 037 to ASCII just reverse the order of the tr///
713 my $ascii_string = $ebcdic_string;
714 eval '$ascii_string =~ tr/\000-\377/' . $cp_037 . '/';
716 Similarly one could take the output of the third column from recipe 0 to
717 obtain a C<$cp_1047> table. The fourth column of the output from recipe
718 0 could provide a C<$cp_posix_bc> table suitable for transcoding as well.
722 XPG operability often implies the presence of an I<iconv> utility
723 available from the shell or from the C library. Consult your system's
724 documentation for information on iconv.
726 On OS/390 or z/OS see the iconv(1) manpage. One way to invoke the iconv
727 shell utility from within perl would be to:
729 # OS/390 or z/OS example
730 $ascii_data = `echo '$ebcdic_data'| iconv -f IBM-1047 -t ISO8859-1`
734 # OS/390 or z/OS example
735 $ebcdic_data = `echo '$ascii_data'| iconv -f ISO8859-1 -t IBM-1047`
737 For other perl based conversion options see the Convert::* modules on CPAN.
741 The OS/390 and z/OS C run time libraries provide _atoe() and _etoa() functions.
743 =head1 OPERATOR DIFFERENCES
745 The C<..> range operator treats certain character ranges with
746 care on EBCDIC platforms. For example the following array
747 will have twenty six elements on either an EBCDIC platform
748 or an ASCII platform:
750 @alphabet = ('A'..'Z'); # $#alphabet == 25
752 The bitwise operators such as & ^ | may return different results
753 when operating on string or character data in a perl program running
754 on an EBCDIC platform than when run on an ASCII platform. Here is
755 an example adapted from the one in L<perlop>:
757 # EBCDIC-based examples
758 print "j p \n" ^ " a h"; # prints "JAPH\n"
759 print "JA" | " ph\n"; # prints "japh\n"
760 print "JAPH\nJunk" & "\277\277\277\277\277"; # prints "japh\n";
761 print 'p N$' ^ " E<H\n"; # prints "Perl\n";
763 An interesting property of the 32 C0 control characters
764 in the ASCII table is that they can "literally" be constructed
765 as control characters in perl, e.g. C<(chr(0)> eq C<\c@>)>
766 C<(chr(1)> eq C<\cA>)>, and so on. Perl on EBCDIC platforms has been
767 ported to take C<\c@> to chr(0) and C<\cA> to chr(1), etc. as well, but the
768 thirty three characters that result depend on which code page you are
769 using. The table below uses the standard acronyms for the controls.
770 The POSIX-BC and 1047 sets are
771 identical throughout this range and differ from the 0037 set at only
772 one spot (21 decimal). Note that the C<LINE FEED> character
773 may be generated by C<\cJ> on ASCII platforms but by C<\cU> on 1047 or POSIX-BC
774 platforms and cannot be generated as a C<"\c.letter."> control character on
775 0037 platforms. Note also that C<\c\> cannot be the final element in a string
776 or regex, as it will absorb the terminator. But C<\c\I<X>> is a C<FILE
777 SEPARATOR> concatenated with I<X> for all I<X>.
779 chr ord 8859-1 0037 1047 && POSIX-BC
780 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
782 \c@ 0 <NUL> <NUL> <NUL>
783 \cA 1 <SOH> <SOH> <SOH>
784 \cB 2 <STX> <STX> <STX>
785 \cC 3 <ETX> <ETX> <ETX>
786 \cD 4 <EOT> <ST> <ST>
787 \cE 5 <ENQ> <HT> <HT>
788 \cF 6 <ACK> <SSA> <SSA>
789 \cG 7 <BEL> <DEL> <DEL>
790 \cH 8 <BS> <EPA> <EPA>
792 \cJ 10 <LF> <SS2> <SS2>
793 \cK 11 <VT> <VT> <VT>
794 \cL 12 <FF> <FF> <FF>
795 \cM 13 <CR> <CR> <CR>
796 \cN 14 <SO> <SO> <SO>
797 \cO 15 <SI> <SI> <SI>
798 \cP 16 <DLE> <DLE> <DLE>
799 \cQ 17 <DC1> <DC1> <DC1>
800 \cR 18 <DC2> <DC2> <DC2>
801 \cS 19 <DC3> <DC3> <DC3>
802 \cT 20 <DC4> <OSC> <OSC>
803 \cU 21 <NAK> <NEL> <LF> ***
804 \cV 22 <SYN> <BS> <BS>
805 \cW 23 <ETB> <ESA> <ESA>
806 \cX 24 <CAN> <CAN> <CAN>
807 \cY 25 <EOM> <EOM> <EOM>
808 \cZ 26 <SUB> <PU2> <PU2>
809 \c[ 27 <ESC> <SS3> <SS3>
810 \c\X 28 <FS>X <FS>X <FS>X
811 \c] 29 <GS> <GS> <GS>
812 \c^ 30 <RS> <RS> <RS>
813 \c_ 31 <US> <US> <US>
815 =head1 FUNCTION DIFFERENCES
821 chr() must be given an EBCDIC code number argument to yield a desired
822 character return value on an EBCDIC platform. For example:
824 $CAPITAL_LETTER_A = chr(193);
828 ord() will return EBCDIC code number values on an EBCDIC platform.
831 $the_number_193 = ord("A");
835 The c and C templates for pack() are dependent upon character set
836 encoding. Examples of usage on EBCDIC include:
838 $foo = pack("CCCC",193,194,195,196);
840 $foo = pack("C4",193,194,195,196);
843 $foo = pack("ccxxcc",193,194,195,196);
848 One must be careful with scalars and strings that are passed to
849 print that contain ASCII encodings. One common place
850 for this to occur is in the output of the MIME type header for
851 CGI script writing. For example, many perl programming guides
852 recommend something similar to:
854 print "Content-type:\ttext/html\015\012\015\012";
855 # this may be wrong on EBCDIC
857 Under the IBM OS/390 USS Web Server or WebSphere on z/OS for example
858 you should instead write that as:
860 print "Content-type:\ttext/html\r\n\r\n"; # OK for DGW et alia
862 That is because the translation from EBCDIC to ASCII is done
863 by the web server in this case (such code will not be appropriate for
864 the Macintosh however). Consult your web server's documentation for
869 The formats that can convert characters to numbers and vice versa
870 will be different from their ASCII counterparts when executed
871 on an EBCDIC platform. Examples include:
873 printf("%c%c%c",193,194,195); # prints ABC
877 EBCDIC sort results may differ from ASCII sort results especially for
878 mixed case strings. This is discussed in more detail below.
882 See the discussion of printf() above. An example of the use
885 $CAPITAL_LETTER_A = sprintf("%c",193);
889 See the discussion of pack() above.
893 =head1 REGULAR EXPRESSION DIFFERENCES
895 As of perl 5.005_03 the letter range regular expression such as
896 [A-Z] and [a-z] have been especially coded to not pick up gap
897 characters. For example, characters such as E<ocirc> C<o WITH CIRCUMFLEX>
898 that lie between I and J would not be matched by the
899 regular expression range C</[H-K]/>. This works in
900 the other direction, too, if either of the range end points is
901 explicitly numeric: C<[\x89-\x91]> will match C<\x8e>, even
902 though C<\x89> is C<i> and C<\x91 > is C<j>, and C<\x8e>
903 is a gap character from the alphabetic viewpoint.
905 If you do want to match the alphabet gap characters in a single octet
906 regular expression try matching the hex or octal code such
907 as C</\313/> on EBCDIC or C</\364/> on ASCII platforms to
908 have your regular expression match C<o WITH CIRCUMFLEX>.
910 Another construct to be wary of is the inappropriate use of hex or
911 octal constants in regular expressions. Consider the following
915 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
916 $char =~ /[\000-\037]/;
920 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
921 $char =~ /[\040-\176]/;
925 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
930 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
931 $char =~ /[\200-\237]/;
935 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
936 $char =~ /[\240-\377]/;
939 The above would be adequate if the concern was only with numeric code points.
940 However, the concern may be with characters rather than code points
941 and on an EBCDIC platform it may be desirable for constructs such as
942 C<if (is_print_ascii("A")) {print "A is a printable character\n";}> to print
943 out the expected message. One way to represent the above collection
944 of character classification subs that is capable of working across the
945 four coded character sets discussed in this document is as follows:
948 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
949 if (ord('^')==94) { # ascii
950 return $char =~ /[\000-\037]/;
952 if (ord('^')==176) { # 0037
953 return $char =~ /[\000-\003\067\055-\057\026\005\045\013-\023\074\075\062\046\030\031\077\047\034-\037]/;
955 if (ord('^')==95 || ord('^')==106) { # 1047 || posix-bc
956 return $char =~ /[\000-\003\067\055-\057\026\005\025\013-\023\074\075\062\046\030\031\077\047\034-\037]/;
961 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
962 $char =~ /[ !"\#\$%&'()*+,\-.\/0-9:;<=>?\@A-Z[\\\]^_`a-z{|}~]/;
966 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
967 if (ord('^')==94) { # ascii
968 return $char eq "\177";
971 return $char eq "\007";
976 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
977 if (ord('^')==94) { # ascii
978 return $char =~ /[\200-\237]/;
980 if (ord('^')==176) { # 0037
981 return $char =~ /[\040-\044\025\006\027\050-\054\011\012\033\060\061\032\063-\066\010\070-\073\040\024\076\377]/;
983 if (ord('^')==95) { # 1047
984 return $char =~ /[\040-\045\006\027\050-\054\011\012\033\060\061\032\063-\066\010\070-\073\040\024\076\377]/;
986 if (ord('^')==106) { # posix-bc
988 /[\040-\045\006\027\050-\054\011\012\033\060\061\032\063-\066\010\070-\073\040\024\076\137]/;
993 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
994 if (ord('^')==94) { # ascii
995 return $char =~ /[\240-\377]/;
997 if (ord('^')==176) { # 0037
999 /[\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]/;
1001 if (ord('^')==95) { # 1047
1003 /[\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]/;
1005 if (ord('^')==106) { # posix-bc
1007 /[\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]/;
1011 Note however that only the C<Is_ascii_print()> sub is really independent
1012 of coded character set. Another way to write C<Is_latin_1()> would be
1013 to use the characters in the range explicitly:
1016 my $char = substr(shift,0,1);
1017 $char =~ /[ ¡¢£¤¥¦§¨©ª«¬
\ad®¯°±²³´µ¶·¸¹º»¼½¾¿ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖ×ØÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö÷øùúûüýþÿ]/;
1020 Although that form may run into trouble in network transit (due to the
1021 presence of 8 bit characters) or on non ISO-Latin character sets.
1025 Most socket programming assumes ASCII character encodings in network
1026 byte order. Exceptions can include CGI script writing under a
1027 host web server where the server may take care of translation for you.
1028 Most host web servers convert EBCDIC data to ISO-8859-1 or Unicode on
1033 One big difference between ASCII based character sets and EBCDIC ones
1034 are the relative positions of upper and lower case letters and the
1035 letters compared to the digits. If sorted on an ASCII based platform the
1036 two letter abbreviation for a physician comes before the two letter
1039 @sorted = sort(qw(Dr. dr.)); # @sorted holds ('Dr.','dr.') on ASCII,
1040 # but ('dr.','Dr.') on EBCDIC
1042 The property of lower case before uppercase letters in EBCDIC is
1043 even carried to the Latin 1 EBCDIC pages such as 0037 and 1047.
1044 An example would be that E<Euml> C<E WITH DIAERESIS> (203) comes
1045 before E<euml> C<e WITH DIAERESIS> (235) on an ASCII platform, but
1046 the latter (83) comes before the former (115) on an EBCDIC platform.
1047 (Astute readers will note that the upper case version of E<szlig>
1048 C<SMALL LETTER SHARP S> is simply "SS" and that the upper case version of
1049 E<yuml> C<y WITH DIAERESIS> is not in the 0..255 range but it is
1050 at U+x0178 in Unicode, or C<"\x{178}"> in a Unicode enabled Perl).
1052 The sort order will cause differences between results obtained on
1053 ASCII platforms versus EBCDIC platforms. What follows are some suggestions
1054 on how to deal with these differences.
1056 =head2 Ignore ASCII vs. EBCDIC sort differences.
1058 This is the least computationally expensive strategy. It may require
1059 some user education.
1061 =head2 MONO CASE then sort data.
1063 In order to minimize the expense of mono casing mixed test try to
1064 C<tr///> towards the character set case most employed within the data.
1065 If the data are primarily UPPERCASE non Latin 1 then apply tr/[a-z]/[A-Z]/
1066 then sort(). If the data are primarily lowercase non Latin 1 then
1067 apply tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/ before sorting. If the data are primarily UPPERCASE
1068 and include Latin-1 characters then apply:
1071 tr/[àáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöøùúûüýþ]/[ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝÞ/;
1074 then sort(). Do note however that such Latin-1 manipulation does not
1075 address the E<yuml> C<y WITH DIAERESIS> character that will remain at
1076 code point 255 on ASCII platforms, but 223 on most EBCDIC platforms
1077 where it will sort to a place less than the EBCDIC numerals. With a
1078 Unicode enabled Perl you might try:
1082 The strategy of mono casing data before sorting does not preserve the case
1083 of the data and may not be acceptable for that reason.
1085 =head2 Convert, sort data, then re convert.
1087 This is the most expensive proposition that does not employ a network
1090 =head2 Perform sorting on one type of platform only.
1092 This strategy can employ a network connection. As such
1093 it would be computationally expensive.
1095 =head1 TRANSFORMATION FORMATS
1097 There are a variety of ways of transforming data with an intra character set
1098 mapping that serve a variety of purposes. Sorting was discussed in the
1099 previous section and a few of the other more popular mapping techniques are
1102 =head2 URL decoding and encoding
1104 Note that some URLs have hexadecimal ASCII code points in them in an
1105 attempt to overcome character or protocol limitation issues. For example
1106 the tilde character is not on every keyboard hence a URL of the form:
1108 http://www.pvhp.com/~pvhp/
1110 may also be expressed as either of:
1112 http://www.pvhp.com/%7Epvhp/
1114 http://www.pvhp.com/%7epvhp/
1116 where 7E is the hexadecimal ASCII code point for '~'. Here is an example
1117 of decoding such a URL under CCSID 1047:
1119 $url = 'http://www.pvhp.com/%7Epvhp/';
1120 # this array assumes code page 1047
1122 0, 1, 2, 3, 55, 45, 46, 47, 22, 5, 21, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
1123 16, 17, 18, 19, 60, 61, 50, 38, 24, 25, 63, 39, 28, 29, 30, 31,
1124 64, 90,127,123, 91,108, 80,125, 77, 93, 92, 78,107, 96, 75, 97,
1125 240,241,242,243,244,245,246,247,248,249,122, 94, 76,126,110,111,
1126 124,193,194,195,196,197,198,199,200,201,209,210,211,212,213,214,
1127 215,216,217,226,227,228,229,230,231,232,233,173,224,189, 95,109,
1128 121,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,145,146,147,148,149,150,
1129 151,152,153,162,163,164,165,166,167,168,169,192, 79,208,161, 7,
1130 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 6, 23, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 9, 10, 27,
1131 48, 49, 26, 51, 52, 53, 54, 8, 56, 57, 58, 59, 4, 20, 62,255,
1132 65,170, 74,177,159,178,106,181,187,180,154,138,176,202,175,188,
1133 144,143,234,250,190,160,182,179,157,218,155,139,183,184,185,171,
1134 100,101, 98,102, 99,103,158,104,116,113,114,115,120,117,118,119,
1135 172,105,237,238,235,239,236,191,128,253,254,251,252,186,174, 89,
1136 68, 69, 66, 70, 67, 71,156, 72, 84, 81, 82, 83, 88, 85, 86, 87,
1137 140, 73,205,206,203,207,204,225,112,221,222,219,220,141,142,223
1139 $url =~ s/%([0-9a-fA-F]{2})/pack("c",$a2e_1047[hex($1)])/ge;
1141 Conversely, here is a partial solution for the task of encoding such
1142 a URL under the 1047 code page:
1144 $url = 'http://www.pvhp.com/~pvhp/';
1145 # this array assumes code page 1047
1147 0, 1, 2, 3,156, 9,134,127,151,141,142, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
1148 16, 17, 18, 19,157, 10, 8,135, 24, 25,146,143, 28, 29, 30, 31,
1149 128,129,130,131,132,133, 23, 27,136,137,138,139,140, 5, 6, 7,
1150 144,145, 22,147,148,149,150, 4,152,153,154,155, 20, 21,158, 26,
1151 32,160,226,228,224,225,227,229,231,241,162, 46, 60, 40, 43,124,
1152 38,233,234,235,232,237,238,239,236,223, 33, 36, 42, 41, 59, 94,
1153 45, 47,194,196,192,193,195,197,199,209,166, 44, 37, 95, 62, 63,
1154 248,201,202,203,200,205,206,207,204, 96, 58, 35, 64, 39, 61, 34,
1155 216, 97, 98, 99,100,101,102,103,104,105,171,187,240,253,254,177,
1156 176,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,170,186,230,184,198,164,
1157 181,126,115,116,117,118,119,120,121,122,161,191,208, 91,222,174,
1158 172,163,165,183,169,167,182,188,189,190,221,168,175, 93,180,215,
1159 123, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73,173,244,246,242,243,245,
1160 125, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82,185,251,252,249,250,255,
1161 92,247, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90,178,212,214,210,211,213,
1162 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57,179,219,220,217,218,159
1164 # The following regular expression does not address the
1165 # mappings for: ('.' => '%2E', '/' => '%2F', ':' => '%3A')
1166 $url =~ s/([\t "#%&\(\),;<=>\?\@\[\\\]^`{|}~])/sprintf("%%%02X",$e2a_1047[ord($1)])/ge;
1168 where a more complete solution would split the URL into components
1169 and apply a full s/// substitution only to the appropriate parts.
1171 In the remaining examples a @e2a or @a2e array may be employed
1172 but the assignment will not be shown explicitly. For code page 1047
1173 you could use the @a2e_1047 or @e2a_1047 arrays just shown.
1175 =head2 uu encoding and decoding
1177 The C<u> template to pack() or unpack() will render EBCDIC data in EBCDIC
1178 characters equivalent to their ASCII counterparts. For example, the
1179 following will print "Yes indeed\n" on either an ASCII or EBCDIC computer:
1181 $all_byte_chrs = '';
1182 for (0..255) { $all_byte_chrs .= chr($_); }
1183 $uuencode_byte_chrs = pack('u', $all_byte_chrs);
1184 ($uu = <<'ENDOFHEREDOC') =~ s/^\s*//gm;
1185 M``$"`P0%!@<("0H+#`T.#Q`1$A,4%187&!D:&QP='A\@(2(C)"4F)R@I*BLL
1186 M+2XO,#$R,S0U-C<X.3H[/#T^/T!!0D-$149'2$E*2TQ-3D]045)35%565UA9
1187 M6EM<75Y?8&%B8V1E9F=H:6IK;&UN;W!Q<G-T=79W>'EZ>WQ]?G^`@8*#A(6&
1188 MAXB)BHN,C8Z/D)&2DY25EI>8F9J;G)V>GZ"AHJ.DI::GJ*FJJZRMKJ^PL;*S
1189 MM+6VM[BYNKN\O;Z_P,'"P\3%QL?(R<K+S,W.S]#1TM/4U=;7V-G:V]S=WM_@
1190 ?X>+CY.7FY^CIZNOL[>[O\/'R\_3U]O?X^?K[_/W^_P``
1192 if ($uuencode_byte_chrs eq $uu) {
1195 $uudecode_byte_chrs = unpack('u', $uuencode_byte_chrs);
1196 if ($uudecode_byte_chrs eq $all_byte_chrs) {
1200 Here is a very spartan uudecoder that will work on EBCDIC provided
1201 that the @e2a array is filled in appropriately:
1203 #!/usr/local/bin/perl
1204 @e2a = ( # this must be filled in
1206 $_ = <> until ($mode,$file) = /^begin\s*(\d*)\s*(\S*)/;
1207 open(OUT, "> $file") if $file ne "";
1211 next unless int(((($e2a[ord()] - 32 ) & 077) + 2) / 3) ==
1213 print OUT unpack("u", $_);
1216 chmod oct($mode), $file;
1219 =head2 Quoted-Printable encoding and decoding
1221 On ASCII encoded platforms it is possible to strip characters outside of
1222 the printable set using:
1224 # This QP encoder works on ASCII only
1225 $qp_string =~ s/([=\x00-\x1F\x80-\xFF])/sprintf("=%02X",ord($1))/ge;
1227 Whereas a QP encoder that works on both ASCII and EBCDIC platforms
1228 would look somewhat like the following (where the EBCDIC branch @e2a
1229 array is omitted for brevity):
1231 if (ord('A') == 65) { # ASCII
1232 $delete = "\x7F"; # ASCII
1233 @e2a = (0 .. 255) # ASCII to ASCII identity map
1236 $delete = "\x07"; # EBCDIC
1237 @e2a = # EBCDIC to ASCII map (as shown above)
1240 s/([^ !"\#\$%&'()*+,\-.\/0-9:;<>?\@A-Z[\\\]^_`a-z{|}~$delete])/sprintf("=%02X",$e2a[ord($1)])/ge;
1242 (although in production code the substitutions might be done
1243 in the EBCDIC branch with the @e2a array and separately in the
1244 ASCII branch without the expense of the identity map).
1246 Such QP strings can be decoded with:
1248 # This QP decoder is limited to ASCII only
1249 $string =~ s/=([0-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f])/chr hex $1/ge;
1250 $string =~ s/=[\n\r]+$//;
1252 Whereas a QP decoder that works on both ASCII and EBCDIC platforms
1253 would look somewhat like the following (where the @a2e array is
1254 omitted for brevity):
1256 $string =~ s/=([0-9A-Fa-f][0-9A-Fa-f])/chr $a2e[hex $1]/ge;
1257 $string =~ s/=[\n\r]+$//;
1259 =head2 Caesarian ciphers
1261 The practice of shifting an alphabet one or more characters for encipherment
1262 dates back thousands of years and was explicitly detailed by Gaius Julius
1263 Caesar in his B<Gallic Wars> text. A single alphabet shift is sometimes
1264 referred to as a rotation and the shift amount is given as a number $n after
1265 the string 'rot' or "rot$n". Rot0 and rot26 would designate identity maps
1266 on the 26 letter English version of the Latin alphabet. Rot13 has the
1267 interesting property that alternate subsequent invocations are identity maps
1268 (thus rot13 is its own non-trivial inverse in the group of 26 alphabet
1269 rotations). Hence the following is a rot13 encoder and decoder that will
1270 work on ASCII and EBCDIC platforms:
1272 #!/usr/local/bin/perl
1275 tr/n-za-mN-ZA-M/a-zA-Z/;
1281 perl -ne 'tr/n-za-mN-ZA-M/a-zA-Z/;print'
1284 =head1 Hashing order and checksums
1286 To the extent that it is possible to write code that depends on
1287 hashing order there may be differences between hashes as stored
1288 on an ASCII based platform and hashes stored on an EBCDIC based platform.
1291 =head1 I18N AND L10N
1293 Internationalization(I18N) and localization(L10N) are supported at least
1294 in principle even on EBCDIC platforms. The details are system dependent
1295 and discussed under the L<perlebcdic/OS ISSUES> section below.
1297 =head1 MULTI OCTET CHARACTER SETS
1299 Perl may work with an internal UTF-EBCDIC encoding form for wide characters
1300 on EBCDIC platforms in a manner analogous to the way that it works with
1301 the UTF-8 internal encoding form on ASCII based platforms.
1303 Legacy multi byte EBCDIC code pages XXX.
1307 There may be a few system dependent issues
1308 of concern to EBCDIC Perl programmers.
1316 The PASE environment is runtime environment for OS/400 that can run
1317 executables built for PowerPC AIX in OS/400, see L<perlos400>. PASE
1318 is ASCII-based, not EBCDIC-based as the ILE.
1328 Perl runs under Unix Systems Services or USS.
1334 B<chcp> is supported as a shell utility for displaying and changing
1335 one's code page. See also L<chcp>.
1337 =item dataset access
1339 For sequential data set access try:
1341 my @ds_records = `cat //DSNAME`;
1345 my @ds_records = `cat //'HLQ.DSNAME'`;
1347 See also the OS390::Stdio module on CPAN.
1349 =item OS/390, z/OS iconv
1351 B<iconv> is supported as both a shell utility and a C RTL routine.
1352 See also the iconv(1) and iconv(3) manual pages.
1356 On OS/390 or z/OS see L<locale> for information on locales. The L10N files
1357 are in F</usr/nls/locale>. $Config{d_setlocale} is 'define' on OS/390
1372 This pod document contains literal Latin 1 characters and may encounter
1373 translation difficulties. In particular one popular nroff implementation
1374 was known to strip accented characters to their unaccented counterparts
1375 while attempting to view this document through the B<pod2man> program
1376 (for example, you may see a plain C<y> rather than one with a diaeresis
1377 as in E<yuml>). Another nroff truncated the resultant manpage at
1378 the first occurrence of 8 bit characters.
1380 Not all shells will allow multiple C<-e> string arguments to perl to
1381 be concatenated together properly as recipes 0, 2, 4, 5, and 6 might
1386 L<perllocale>, L<perlfunc>, L<perlunicode>, L<utf8>.
1390 L<http://anubis.dkuug.dk/i18n/charmaps>
1392 L<http://www.unicode.org/>
1394 L<http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr16/>
1396 L<http://www.wps.com/projects/codes/>
1397 B<ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Infiltration> Tom Jennings,
1400 B<The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0> The Unicode Consortium, Lisa Moore ed.,
1401 ISBN 0-201-61633-5, Addison Wesley Developers Press, February 2000.
1403 B<CDRA: IBM - Character Data Representation Architecture -
1404 Reference and Registry>, IBM SC09-2190-00, December 1996.
1406 "Demystifying Character Sets", Andrea Vine, Multilingual Computing
1407 & Technology, B<#26 Vol. 10 Issue 4>, August/September 1999;
1408 ISSN 1523-0309; Multilingual Computing Inc. Sandpoint ID, USA.
1410 B<Codes, Ciphers, and Other Cryptic and Clandestine Communication>
1411 Fred B. Wrixon, ISBN 1-57912-040-7, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers,
1414 L<http://www.bobbemer.com/P-BIT.HTM>
1415 B<IBM - EBCDIC and the P-bit; The biggest Computer Goof Ever> Robert Bemer.
1419 15 April 2001: added UTF-8 and UTF-EBCDIC to main table, pvhp.
1423 Peter Prymmer pvhp@best.com wrote this in 1999 and 2000
1424 with CCSID 0819 and 0037 help from Chris Leach and
1425 AndrE<eacute> Pirard A.Pirard@ulg.ac.be as well as POSIX-BC
1426 help from Thomas Dorner Thomas.Dorner@start.de.
1427 Thanks also to Vickie Cooper, Philip Newton, William Raffloer, and
1428 Joe Smith. Trademarks, registered trademarks, service marks and
1429 registered service marks used in this document are the property of
1430 their respective owners.