Importing Cobol file

[Denis Boutin]

Hi

What is the simplest way to import COBOL COMP-3 variables in Access XP ?

 

[Jeff]

I really don't know.

HTH.

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Denis,

There's no built-in support for this. If you're comfortable with
scripting the simplest thing to do is probably to use a Perl (or
similar) script on the file exported from the COBOL system to convert
the numbers to a string representation of the decimal number, which can
be imported into a numeric field in Access.

Alternatively they can be imported to a text field in Access after which
it's possible to write a custom VBA function in an update query to
decode them and put the results into a numeric field.

Otherwise, look into software such as TextPipe Pro and Monarch. A
standard installation of TextPipe Pro won't handle these fields, but the
company seems very willing to create custom filters.

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

The easiest way is to convert the Comp-3 to a text string on the IBM (EBCDIC
side). If you wait until it is on an PC (ASCII) platform you have to undo
the conversion fro EBCDIC to ASCII that has been done on the field when it
is moved to a PC platform. Most mainframes have utilites or languages that
will handle the conversion.

Since a digit only has ten possible values (0-9), it can be represented in
only 4 bits, you can get two digits in each 8 bit byte. The last four bits
of the last byte is used to store the sign for the number. "C" hex is
positive, "D" hex is negative, and "F" hex is unsigned.

John... Visio MVP

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