IBM Mainframe Forum

Hi,
I have a file that contains garbage characters which is causing a hang in a batch job.
When I turn HEX on, it showed up as – CC
02
I believe it’s a carriage return.
What can I do to prevent this programmatically in the future.?
The field is defined as: PICX(60).

Thank you for your assistance.

kihaho wrote:I have a file that contains garbage characters which is causing a hang in a batch job.
When I turn HEX on, it showed up as – CC
02
I believe it’s a carriage return.
What can I do to prevent this programmatically in the future.?
The field is defined as: PICX(60).

You mean that there are two bytes of X'C0C2'? Or one byte of X'02'?
Multiple times? In the same location?

More info is needed, but why not prevent the program outputting the data to not output the 'garbage' in the first place?
Or, after reading the record, eliminate the garbage before processing it?

Hi CICS guy,
Thank you for the reply.
Here is my answer to your question.

You mean that there are two bytes of X'C0C2'? Or one byte of X'02'?
Multiple times? In the same location?

It's x'C0C2'.(2 bytes)

More info is needed, but why not prevent the program outputting the data to not output the 'garbage' in the first place?
Or, after reading the record, eliminate the garbage before processing it?CICS Guy

I'd like to know how to eliminate the garbage characters after reading the record, before processing it, please.
Thank you!!!
Posts: 218
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2007 5:38 pm
Private message

Hello,

First, you have to identify all of the possible "garbage" characters.

Then, in your code (after the read and before usng the data) INSPECT the input data converting the "garbage" to whatever you want to use instead.

kihaho wrote:I'd like to know how to eliminate the garbage characters after reading the record, before processing it,

Again, do they appear multiple times? In the same location? Do you want to replace them with any particular value or have them 'squeezed' out of the record with trailing characters 'slid' forward?

Hi Dick and CICS guy,
Thank you so much for your advice.
To answer your question, the value of the garbage character is always the same(x'C0C2').
But the location of this item changes all the time. The reason is that it’s PIC X(70) free form field.
People enter an accident description, so the length of the description differs every time. Therefore, the location of the garbage characters is somewhere in the 70bytes field and fluctuates.

As Dick suggested, I am going to put the Inspect statement after the record is read and before it’s processed:

Inspect Accident-description replacing all X’C0C2’ by spaces.

Is this right?
Thank you so much again!!

kihaho wrote:Inspect Accident-description replacing all X’C0C2’ by spaces.
Is this right?

Looks good....
INSPECT statement

Thank you again, so much!!!
You guys always deliver good!!

You're welcome

Is the INSPECT now working for you?

d

Sorry for the delay on my reply.
Yes, the "inspect" is working beautifully!
Thank you again!!!