Fujitsu BS2OSD manual Support for Unicode in BS2000/OSD via XHCS-SYS

2.17New functions in BS2000/OSD V6.0B with Correction Package 1/2007

2.17.1 Support for Unicode in BS2000/OSD via XHCS-SYS

*5 Due to new EU directives, the previously supported character sets

*5 are no longer sufficient in the medium term. As of BS2000/OSD-BC

*5 V6.0B (correction level B62), support for Unicode supplements the

*5 EBCDIC character sets previously available in BS2000/OSD systems

*5 with the additional characters required in the European language

*5 theater. This is done by using selected Unicode code points in

*5 addition to the previous EBCDIC variants.

*5 Unicode is an international standard in which a digital code is

*5 defined for each character of all known languages over the long

*5 term. You will find information on Unicode in the Internet under

*5 http://www.unicode/org/.

*5 The basis for the Unicode support in BS2000/OSD is extensions in

*5 the XHCS-SYS V2.0 subsystem, the central source of information

*5 about the coded character sets available in the system.

*5 XHCS-SYS V2.0 is a component part of openNetServer V3.2.

*5 In addition to the previously supported 8 bit ISO codes ISO8859-

*5 1/2/3/4/5/7/9/15 and the EBCDIC codes belonging to them, XHCS-SYS

*5 V2.0 also supports the Unicode formats UTF-8, UTF-16 (2 byte,

*5 BS2000) and UTF-E in BS2000, that follows UTF-EBCDIC from IBM.

*5 XHCS-SYS V2.0 also includes conversion tables from the supported

*5 8 bit ISO codes to Unicode and vice versa. In addition to the

*5 characters supported in these ISO codes, XHCS-SYS supports around

*5 70 further characters from the Unicode character set, e.g. spe-

*5 cial characters such as those used in public administrations

*5 Using Unicode in the system

*5 To support using Unicode in BS2000/OSD systems, the character

*5 sets used in the system are extended by additional characters and

*5 a programming and runtime environment are provided to extend ex-

*5 isting applications with Unicode fields. It is thereby assumed

*5 that only a few fields, mainly name and address fields, have to

*5 be converted to Unicode.

*5 The Unicode support is provided on the basis of the existing

*5 products. Unicode-based characters are allowed for texts to be

*5 processed but not for field or container names.

*5 The product-specific rules for commands and object names remain

*5 as they were.

*5 Further preparations must be made for using Unicode beyond updat-

*5 ing the system base, the system level applications and the pro-

*5 gramming environment.

*5 These include:

*5 - All data/files must be brought into a defined,

*5 consistent state.

*5 - The CCS (Coded Character Sets) names of all data must be

*5 consistent since the CCS name is a central component for

*5 handling the data.

*5 - Applications must be extended by the additional Unicode fields

*5 that have to be processed.

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