Data type conversion

Character Set and Endian Migration

Overview
Alphabetical
Date/Time
Multi-Byte
Numerical
Byte order
Challenges

Translation of binary mainframe data types (like COMP) and typical data type conversions like these:

    EBCDIC to ASCII
    packed or zoned decimal to binary integer
    Currency figures
    European timestamps by ISO
    Floating-point to numeric
    Big Endian to Little Endian

traditionally requires one or more specialized data conversion tools and I/O passes, and in some cases, data conversion services. Reversing the process (e.g., converting ASCII to packed decimal data) can be difficult or require special data transformation techniques. In any case, data type conversion is generally not a seamless part of data migrations and typically does not integrate well with other predictable operations such as ETL, data cleansing, and reporting.

Solutions

IRI-assisted data type groups

  • ASCII / C
  • EBCDIC MF
  • Date
  • Composites
  • Multi-Byte

  • Packed decimal

  • Numerical
  • EBCDIC RM
  • Timestamp
  • Single-Byte
  • Unicode
  • Zoned Decimal

IRI NextForm Converts data types while migrating, replicating, or federating files and tables. Convert source fields from EBCDIC to ASCII, packed decimals to numeric, American to ISO timestamps, IP addresses to integers, etc. Save time and money by using NextForm for conversion between over 100 built-in (or custom) data types.

NextForm also supports migration and conversion of Databases and converts files from one format to another. For example, you can update or modify RDBs like Oracle, convert a Micro Focus COBOL I-SAM or Vision file to a text file, transition from LDIF to CSV, and so on. NextForm can also: reformat records, manipulate field elements, filter, validate, and clean data, as well as create custom reports.

 

Data type conversion is just one of many formatting options in the data transformation product. IRI CoSort and in the data management platform IRI Voracity, which contains CoSort.

Their common program Sort Control Language (SortCL) allows you to convert data types and formats at your leisure:

    Integration and Provisioning of Data in DW ETL Operations
    Migration between applications, databases, or from the mainframe.
    replaces slower shell or 3GL programs
    Creating custom detail, delta, and summary reports

Use SortCL to convert a fixed-length EBCDIC file to a CSV, ASCII, or XML file, while sorting Big-Endian data and changing it to Little-Endian. Such consolidated processing saves build steps and run times when unloading and pre-sorting data for relational DB loads.

The SortCL Programs convert data also in other ways. They filter and clean, sort and merge, connect and aggregate, mask PII, and format fields into multiple output destinations – and report everything at once.

Contact us to discuss your use case. It is also possible to provide custom data type conversion or comparison routines for special data forms.

Related solutions

Product links