Date:         Tue, 20 May 2003 15:26:32 +0100
Reply-To:     SAS User <sasuser@GUILDENSTERN.DYNDNS.ORG>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         SAS User <sasuser@GUILDENSTERN.DYNDNS.ORG>
Subject:      Vancouver Utilities -- MF => Unix conversion tools, experiences?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

These turned up in a web search recently.  Curious if anyone out there
has experience with the tools, particularly in conjunction with SAS:

    http://www.uvsoftware.ca/

    The Vancouver Utilities is a general purpose package of powerful
    data manipulation, file maintenance, and text scanning tools. These
    tools can perform whatever kind of raw data conversion you require,
    such as converting packed data to numeric, translating EBCDIC to
    ASCII, extracting data from complex variable length files, etc.

    The package has been extensively used to convert Mainframe systems
    (COBOL, JCL, & DATA) to Unix or Linux systems. For details please
    see IBM2unix.doc in the Mainframe Conversion Library. Mainframe
    conversions are major projects and UV Software can supply onsite
    training and assistance in the use of these conversion tools.

    Converting EBCDIC data files to ASCII is usually driven by the COBOL
    copybooks (record layouts). But if copybooks are not available the
    record layouts can be automatically generated by scanning the EBCDIC
    data, using the unique codes for packed decimal signs and zoned
    signs. For details please see EBCDICjobs.doc in the Mainframe
    Conversion Library.

    This package fills the gaps in Unix & Linux system software that
    were provided by data management utilities on the mainframes. For
    example mainframes had DATA and SORT utilities that could process
    sequential and indexed files with fixed record lengths and without
    linefeeds. Unix & Linux systems have many utilities to process text
    files, but none to process these mainframe file types. If you used
    Syncsort on the mainframe, you will be interested to know that
    uvsort can supply most of the Syncsort functions on unix systems.


--
Charming man. I wish I had a daughter so I could forbid her to marry one...