The built-in functions component includes field edit and phonetic conversion, both of which are available to a CICS® application program. Also, the phonetic conversion subroutine can be used offline.
The field edit function allows the application program to pass a field containing EBCDIC digits (0 through 9) intermixed with other values, and receive a result with all non-numeric characters removed.
For further details of this function, see the CICS Application Programming Reference.
This facility allows the user to organize a file according to name (or similar alphabetic key), and access the file using search arguments that may be misspelled.
The phonetic conversion subroutine (DFHPHN) converts a name into a partial key, which can then be used to access a database file. The generated key is based upon the sound of the name. This means that names sounding similar, but spelled differently, generally produce identical keys. For example, the names SMITH, SMYTH, and SMYTHE all produce a phonetic key of S530. Likewise, the names ANDERSON, ANDRESEN, and ANDRESENN produce a phonetic key of A536. The encoding routine ignores embedded blanks in a name, so you can write names prefixed by ‘Mc’ with or without a blank between the prefix and the rest of the name, for example, ‘McEWEN’ or ‘Mc EWEN’.
For details of how to code a CALL statement for the DFHPHN subroutine according to the language of the application program, see the CICS Application Programming Guide.
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