Unicode Encoding Types

Add new encoding types to alpha fields, RAW, NATIONAL, and UNICODE.

Overview

Alpha fields will have three choices for Encoding.

• RAW
• NATIONAL
• UNICODE

Field Type considered Alpha are:

• ALPHA
• DATE with ALPHA Storage Type
• FORMAT
• TEXT

RAW Encoding:

• All existing alpha fields will have a default single-byte encoding type of RAW.
• DD length is the number of 8-bit bytes that the field can store.
• Internal format in the engine is 8-bit bytes.
• May contain binary data.
• May contain 8-bit characters (uses 8859-15 encoding when interpreted as character data).
• Stored in APPXIO records as 8-bit bytes.
• No transcoding is performed when reading/writing a RAW field in APPXIO.

UNICODE Encoding:

• DD length is the number of 4-byte UTF-32 characters that the field can store.
• Internal format in the engine is UTF-32 (4 bytes per character).
• Used to store Unicode characters in a UTF-32 encoding.
• Stored in APPXIO as 4-byte UTF-32 characters.
• No transcoding is performed when reading/writing a UNICODE field in APPXIO.

NATIONAL Encoding:

• DD length is the number of 8-bit characters that the field can store.
• Internal format in the engine is UTF-32 (4 bytes per character).
• Used to store Unicode characters using a specified 8-bit encoding method.
• The encoding method is specified in System Admin (SYSPARM, SYSDFLT, and SYSDIR).
• Stored in APPXIO records as 1-byte characters.
• Transcoding of characters is performed to/from the internal UTF-32 format when reading/writing to disk.

APPX Data Dictionary Considerations:

• The field length represents the number of characters that can be stored in the alpha field.

Test Plan:

APPX Data Dictionary Considerations: (untested)

Test Requirements:

Does the DD allow encoding type for all alpha field types to be specified?

Does the DD compiler support 1-byte or 4-byte characters in alpha fields?

Test Results and Notes:

untested

-- PeteBrower - 2011-03-04