Re: [netrexx-pipelines] XLATE questions

[<hp...@we...>]

Jeff!

Am 27.06.2022 um 18:47 schrieb Jeff Hennick:
> First let me make clear that I am not an XLATE "expert."

Nor am I! My degree is /MD/, "master of disaster" ;)
Honestly, I try to use NetRexx Pipelines as described in
'Pipelines Guide and Reference', ISBN 978-90-819090-3-7, where I
read in chapter 8:

> For a complete description we refer to the IBM Pipelines documentation.

Which one exactly? Ok, in that case my choice is the author's
edition from 1846, ah... sorry, no, July 2010. Normally, "papers"
older than 6 years are ignored, alas, it's the youngest I have.
But! typically IBM does not change suitable systems too fast. This
is why, also together with the explicit promise of NetRexx
Pipelines "Implements CMS Pipelines" (w/o restrictions, no
footnotes, no "see working examples" addition), I assume it as
highly likely that the Xlate stage probably still might work as
described once upon a time by John.

No, I'm for sure not an expert, I try my first steps with NetRexx
Pipelines (called from ooRexx), so somehow I am a student who has
no time and no reason yet to distrust the description.

> I did not write the
> XLATE stage for NetRexx, René did a long time ago, it has a copyright date of
> 1998.  I did add the input range handling, back then too.

I am not interested who done it, I rather prefer Pipes that WAD
(work as designed).

> I know little of what the XLATE stage is supposed to do or how it does it.

Is this a test if I dare to give the fitting reply?

> I
> have used it for case conversion, and wrote 8 simple verification tests (
> xlate_tests01.njp ).

Nice. But why didn't you test _all_ features which are described
in the manual?

> As for the published NetRexx documentation for it, I am responsible, bearing in
> mind the above.

You ask for pity? -- Hmm..., it was for sure not my intention to
push you into such a situation. Maybe I took this "Implements CMS
Pipelines" too serious, maybe same time you desired to keep your
promise. Maybe both intentions are too demanding. Maybe I should
only report errors without much ado.

> Mostly I copied it from the IBM publication.

You copied also the error in the RRT diagram regarding how to
define more than one input range.

> I stand ready to
> improve it in any way I can.  Here is a special Thank You on this point.  I just
> looked at the xlate.nrx source code and see some different and additional
> documentation there.  I will work at consolidating all these for the next release.
>
> Also welcomed would be any additional verification tests.

I will report all findings from doing, but no extra beta-testing.

> Especially any showing
> erroneous results from the current version.  For these, I would need three
> pieces of information:
>
>   1. the test XLATE stage
>   2. test input data; in the case of this stage, only a single line would be
>      needed but multiples to show different points can be used
>   3. the expected output (for each input line); and if currently a failure, I'd
>      like that output too

All requested information is included in
https://github.com/RexxLA/NetRexx/issues/30
but it should be split, there are two issues for different stages.
BTW, the reported error has nothing to do with codepages.

> More comments interspersed below.
> [...]
> Great.  There is also a possible hint in IBM's Note "4. Use a cascade of xlate
> stages to perform stepwise translation." and that you might be able to generate
> your external table that way.  But it is beyond me.

That note #4 is for the really challenging cases.

>> ii) [...]
>> Marked as not yet in Pipes for NetRexx are 'OUTput' and 'TO/FROM
>> CODEPAGE n', but not 'INput'. For CMS input and output options of
>> the XLATE stage are related to the input and output settings.
>> Question: what is under Windows the corresponding parallel of CMS
>> input setting?
>
> Sorry, I have no idea of what INput and OUTput are supposed to do or what they
> might be related to in any system.  I can find no further reference to them in
> either IBM documentation.

But according your documentation, INput is part of NetRexx
Pipelnes' Xlate stage while OUTput isn't.

>      (I find the XLATE IBM documentation to be harder to understand than most.
>      For example, I have no idea of the use of all those Codepages, or why one
>      would use them here other than that one can go FROM one TO another. But why,

Why does CMS/TSO Pipelines offer a selected subset of codepages?

>      and how one goes from a language with umlauts to one with tildes is a
>      mystery to me.

Is there an example that does so? Or is this your guesswork
someone could do this?

>      Is there a good reason that "500 EBCDIC Belgium, Canada,
>      Switzerland, International Latin-1. International number 5. This is the base
>      codepage for xlate." rather than say, "285 EBCDIC United Kingdom." or "37
>      EBCDIC United States, Canada, Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, Australia, New
>      Zealand." and how should I decide between that and "274 EBCDIC Belgium." if
>      I am really interested in Belgium?

Your are interested in Belgium? No, if you exchange files with a
VM system located in Belgium (and which is running on CP 274) you
are interested to see as much as possible on your PC screen as
would be visible on the mainframe terminal "chez les belges".
And vv too.

>      Also, mentioned only in passing in a footnote is "E2A". [The xlate.nrx
>      internal documentation says E2A (EBCDIC to ASCII) and A2E (ASCII to EBCDIC)
>      are options instead of UPper and LOWer in NetRexx Pipelines. ] )

Please keep in mind:

> A language needs to be adaptable because it certainly will be used for
> applications not foreseen by the designer. (M. COWLISHAW)

Thus, even if you "have no idea of the use of all those
Codepages", they may be useful for somebody else.

Best,
M.