Double-Byte Character Set Support

This appendix describes double-byte character set and 5550 terminal support implemented by CA Ideal and the related CA IPC.

The CICS specification of the SOSI feature in the CICS Terminal Control Table (TCT) provides recognition of the IBM 5550 terminal and network printer.

Failure to specify SOSI in the TCT displays normal characters on the 5550, but DBCS data displays as question marks (?) on the 5550 network printer.

To allow expansion to languages that support a double-byte representation of symbols, CA Ideal requires a level of sensitivity to the way in which you define double-byte character set data. This document uses the following terms to describe double-byte character set data.

DBCS: Double-byte character set.
S/D: Shift to double character (hex 'OE') that precedes DBCS data (on a 5550, known as the shift-out character, where shift-out means shift out of EBCDIC mode).
S/S: Shift to single character (hex 'OF') that follows DBCS data (on a 5550, known as the shift-in character, where shift-in means shift into EBCDIC mode).
I-DBCS: Implicit DBCS, DBCS data without S/D and S/S characters.
E-DBCS: Explicit DBCS, DBCS data with S/D and S/S characters.

The following areas were changed in CA Ideal to accommodate DBCS data:

The Panel Definition Facility (PDF) extends to display and enter DBCS data in panel fields.
Panel Definition Language (PDL) adds new string functions for handling DBCS data.
A new compiler option makes the compiler sensitive to DBCS data when it is moved between fields.
The Report Definition Facility (RDF) allows DBCS data in certain areas.
CA Ideal now supports user exits for modifying DBCS data before it is output on a system printer. The CA IPC Installation Guide documents this PSS user exit.
A new CA IPC SCF option displays all CA Ideal system panels and messages in uppercase since the lowercase keyboard positions are used for native character-set support (for example, Katakana in Japan).
A new CA IPC PMS translate table, PMSTRNDK, was added to the system. It translates non-displayable characters on a 5550. It differs from the regular PMS translate table, PMSTRND, in that the 5550 has a different set of accepted terminal values.