Simplified definition of default code pages

The default client or server code pages can be defined in the system initialization table in order to reduce the number of conversion tables required to configure a CICSplex.

Whenever data is passed between CICS® and another system, some or all of the data may have to be converted from ASCII to EBCDIC format, or vice versa. Data conversion is facilitated by the DFHCNV conversion table, which contains a conversion template for each resource for which conversion is required.

Certain distributed components of a CICSplex such as CICS Transaction Gateway for z/OS® and CICS Transaction Server for Windows do not provide an override for the default client code page specified in the conversion table. Because conversion tables do not have a suffix, two tables can be required, each residing on a different library and differing only in the default code page.

In order to reduce the number of conversion tables required, you can now specify that the default client or server code page is defined in the system initialization table.

For the client code page:
  1. In the DFHCNV TYPE=ENTRY and TYPE=SELECT macros, specify the value SYSDEF for the CLINTCP parameter.
  2. In the system initialization table, set a default client code page by specifying a value for the CLINTCP parameter. You can use any value supported for the CLINTCP parameter on the DFHCNV macro. The default is CLINTCP=437.
For the server code page:
  1. In the DFHCNV TYPE=ENTRY and TYPE=SELECT macros, specify the value SYSDEF for the SRVERCP parameter.
  2. In the system initialization table, set a default server code page by specifying a value for the SRVERCP parameter. You can use any value supported for the SRVERCP parameter on the DFHCNV macro. The default is SRVERCP=037.