General Tab

The fields under the Render Copybook Data activity General tab are described here.

Field Literal Value/Module Property? Description
Name No The activity’s label name in the process definition.
Copybook Resource No The Copybook Resource that defines the schema for the input XML and the binary layout of the data.
Big Endian Yes The byte order of the incoming data. Select this field to specify the byte order as Big Endian, for example, for IBM mainframes and certain UNIX platforms. Deselect this field if the byte order is Little Endian, for example, for Microsoft Windows and certain UNIX platforms.
Character Set Yes The character-set encoding for the string values in the rendered data except for COBOL items with USAGE DISPLAY-1. This encoding also affects the rendering of zoned decimal values. For details, see Handling of Zoned Decimal Items.

You can choose either single-byte or multibyte character sets from the drop-down menu. Multibyte character sets are marked with an asterisk for easy identification.

Warning: Multibyte character sets are allowed for COBOL copybooks only. Although you can choose those sets, choosing one in conjunction with a PL/I or RPG copybook causes an error.

For details on how character sets work in the Plug-in, see Latin Normalization in Character Sets.

Character Set for DISPLAY-1 Items Yes The character-set encoding for the string values in the incoming data for COBOL items with USAGE DISPLAY-1. This field is available only if you select a COBOL copybook.

You can choose either single-byte or multibyte character sets from the drop-down menu. Multibyte character sets are marked with an asterisk for easy identification.

For details on how character sets work in the Plug-in, see Latin Normalization in Character Sets.

Multiple Records Yes The field that specifies whether to render one record or multiple records.
  • If you select this field, the Plug-In renders all top-level input elements as records, which are separated by the delimiter specified in the Records Delimiter field.
  • If you deselect this field, the Plug-In renders only one record, that is, the first top-level element from the input XML.
Record Delimiter Yes The field that specifies the delimiter between records in the output data in case of a selected Multiple Records field. You can specify the following valid delimiter types :

None — Specifies that a new record begins directly after the last record ends. No characters separate the records.

New Line — Specifies that a new-line character separates the records in the output.

Carriage Return — Specifies that a carriage-return character separates the records in the output.

Carriage Return/Line Feed (Windows) — Specifies that a carriage-return character followed by a line- feed character separates the records in the output.

The above values are for the UNIX and Windows platforms only.

It is good practice not to use Record delimiters if you set the Render As property to String. See the warning below this table.

When specifying this field by Module or Process properties, you can use the following values:

  • None: none
  • New Line: nl, New Line
  • Carriage Return: cret, cr, Carriage Return
  • Carriage Return/Line Feed (Windows): crlf, Carriage Return/Line Feed (Windows)

Note that the previous values are not case-sensitive.

Truncate Multi-Byte Strings Yes The field that specifies whether to truncate long strings, applicable to COBOL copybooks only and valid only if you have selected a multibyte character set. For DISPLAY items, the binary length is equal to the number of characters.

If you configure the activity to use a multibyte character set, the binary representation of a string might become longer than the allocated length. In that case—

  • If you select this field, the activity truncates the binary representation at the nearest character boundary to ensure that the Plug-in does not throw a SerializationException exception and that the allocated length is never exceeded.

    Warning: Exercise caution when selecting this field. Even though data truncation occurs at a character boundary, the truncation might cause an undesired content change for certain multibyte character sets.

  • If you deselect this field, the Plug-in throws a SerializationException exception.
Filler Character Yes The field that specifies the fill character used for text padding or layout gaps. You can choose either NULL (a byte with value zero) or Space as the fill character; NULL is the default.

When you select Space, the exact byte value depends on the Character Set setting of your activity. See Item Initialization During Rendering for more information.

When specifying this field by Module or Process properties, you can use the following values:

  • Null: null
  • Space: space

Note that the previous values are not case-sensitive.

Default Numeric and DATE Items to Yes This field is available for COBOL copybooks. It specifies how the binary data is initialized for numeric or DATE items that are not specified in the input mapping. Options are:

Type Defaults — Numeric and Date items are initialized differently:

  • Numeric items are initialized with a numeric value 0 and are rendered according to the PICTURE and USAGE, and DATE FORMAT clauses, as well as settings of the copybook resource and Render activity.
  • DATE items are initialized with a default date 0001-01-01, which is rendered according to the PICTURE, USAGE clauses, as well as settings of the copybook resource and Render activity.

    LOW-VALUES — All numeric and DATE items are initialized with zero bytes, regardless of the copybook or any other settings.

    See Item Initialization During Rendering for more information.

When specifying this field by Module or Process properties, you can use the following values:

  • Type Defaults: typeDefaults, Type Defaults
  • LOW-VALUES: lowValues, LOW-VALUES

Note that the previous values are not case-sensitive.

ASCII Zoned Format Yes You can use this field to select a specific ASCII Zoned format to be generated.

Use this field when the Character Set field or forceCharacterSet field is set to a character set that belongs to the ASCII family.

  • strict— generate Strict ASCII zoned decimal format.
  • modified— generate Modified ASCII zoned decimal format.

The input field asciiZonedFormat acts as a runtime override of this field.

See Handling of Zoned Decimal Items.

When specifying this field by Module or Process properties, you can use the following values:

  • Strict: strict
  • Modified: modified

Note that the previous values are not case-sensitive.

Render Data as No The field that specifies the output data format. You have two choices:

Bytes — The Plug-in renders the data as a byte sequence.

String —The Plug-in renders the data as a string with the character set encoding as specified in the Character Set field. See that field’s description earlier in this table.

Make your choice with caution. See the warning below this table.

IBM i Sign Nibbles Yes If it is checked, this field instructs the activity to render the IBM i flavor of zoned and packed decimal items. If it is not checked, zOS flavor is generated.

This field is only available for COBOL copybooks. See Sign Nibbles in Zoned and Packed Decimal Items for more information.

Fail on Invalid XML Characters Yes This field is only applicable when Render Data as is set to String.

It specifies whether the activity check the output string content for presence of characters that are not valid in XML documents. Depending on the copybook specifics, there is a possibility that the activity might produce such characters. If checked, the activity fails when such characters are detected.

See Dealing with Invalid XML Characters.

Warning: Specify the String value for the Render As property with caution. This value instructs the Render activity to generate a string for the entire rendering result according to a specific character set.

If either or both of the following conditions are true, it is good practice that you do not specify the String value. Such a specification might cause the Plug-in to convert the binary data to meaningless characters in the output string. Also, you might not be able to recover the binary values from the output.

  • The copybook contains fields with binary representation, such as COBOL fields with BINARY (COMP, COMP-1, COMP-2, and COMP-3; or zoned decimal fields without SIGN SEPARATE. Refer to the COBOL specification for details.
  • The Plug-in renders multiple records with a record delimiter. The values of the Records Delimiter property apply to the UNIX and Windows platforms only and, depending on the character set, might yield unexpected characters.