Load an Array with a string & convert EBCDIC to ASCII

Load an Array with a string & convert EBCDIC to ASCII

• Rudi De Vos

  I solved my Array issue. But I'm having problems getting my EBCDIC to ASCII Encoding to work. Please see code to below:

  Function EBCDIC2ASCII(ByVal FieldContent)

  Dim EBCDICCodePage As Encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("IBM037")

  Dim CharIndex As Integer
  Dim StrLength As Integer
  Dim InputString As String = FieldContent
  Dim EBCDIC_Char As String
  Dim OutputChar As String
  StrLength = InputString.Length

  Dim InputArray() As Char = InputString.ToCharArray

  Dim OutputArray() As Char

  For CharIndex = 0 To 7

  EBCDIC_Char = InputArray(CharIndex)

  OutputChar = EBCDICCodePage.Equals(EBCDIC_Char).ToString

  Next

  Return OutputArray
  End Function

  I was expecting the above code to return the converted ASCII character. Instead I received a "Fales" result.

  What am I doing wrong here.

  
  

• Alfredo Mendez MSFT

  You are setting the OutputChar to the result of the Equals() method, which returns a boolean value.

  Try using the Convert() method instead. Also, check the things that spotty pointed out... either you've left out some code when you posted, or your subroutine is incomplete.

  
  
  

• Wendy_B

  Is fieldcontent a string that is being passed. It is is then you need to specify the ptype of the parameter.

  Is the array meant to be an array of strings or an array of characters that is the length of the string. in which case you would be converting a string to an array of chars

  Now the following is an example that simply takes a string and converts it to a byte array and writes a duplicate copy of the byte array and returns this copy array. Its not an efficient way of doing the action but shows the general idea of string to byte array and working with individual bytes in the array to create an output array.

  I think this will help you understand the data typing issue you encountering.

  Example

  Function StringToByteArray(ByVal FieldContent As String) As Char()
  Dim i As Integer = FieldContent.Length

  Dim InputArray(i) As Char
  Dim OutputArray(i) As Char

  InputArray = FieldContent

  '//Simply Doing a byte by byte copy of the character arrays
  Dim x As Integer = 0
  For x = 0 To i - 1
  OutputArray(x) = InputArray(x)
  Next
  Return OutputArray
  End Function
  

  
  

• Kim Madsen

  A couple of items

  declare you type on the following line, what type is field content - is it a string

  Function EBCDIC2ASCII(ByVal FieldContent)

  what is you expected return type You need to specify something like this.

  Function EBCDIC2ASCII(ByVal FieldContent as string ) as char()

  Then

  you are never setting OutputArray. Within the loop you are using the OutputChar but you never actually set any of the OutputArray so it will still be nothing.

  Is OutputChar the character you want to write into the array.

  
  
• Load an Array with a string & convert EBCDIC to ASCII