Data conversion with channels

Applications that use channels to exchange data use a simple data conversion model. Frequently, no conversion is required and, when it is, a single programming instruction can be used to tell CICS® to handle it automatically.

Note the following:
For data conversion purposes, CICS recognizes two types of data:
CHAR
Character data—that is, a text string. The data in the container is converted (if necessary) to the code page of the application that retrieves it. If the application that retrieves the data is a client on an ASCII-based system, this will be an ASCII code page. If it is a CICS Transaction Server for z/OS® application, it will be an EBCDIC code page.

All the data in a container is converted as if it were a single character string. For single-byte character set (SBCS) code pages, a structure consisting of several character fields is equivalent to a single-byte character string. However, for double-byte character set (DBCS) code pages this is not the case. If you use DBCS code pages, to ensure that data conversion works correctly you must put each character string into a separate container.

BIT
All non-character data—that is, everything that is not designated as being of type CHAR. The data in the container cannot be converted. This is the default value.
The API commands used for data conversion are:

For detailed information about the PUT CONTAINER (CHANNEL) command, see PUT CONTAINER (CHANNEL). For detailed information about the GET CONTAINER (CHANNEL) command, see GET CONTAINER (CHANNEL).