Informats under z/OS

Considerations for Using Informats under z/OS

The following character informats produce different results on different computing platforms, depending on which character encoding the platform uses. Because z/OS uses the EBCDIC character encoding, all of the following informats convert data to EBCDIC.

These informats are not discussed in detail in this chapter because the EBCDIC character encoding is their only host-specific aspect.

$ASCIIw.: converts ASCII character data to EBCDIC character data.
$BINARYw.: converts binary values to EBCDIC character data.
$CHARZBw.: reads character data and converts any byte that contains a binary zero to a blank.
$EBCDICw.: converts character data to EBCDIC. Under z/OS, $EBCDIC and $CHAR are equivalent.
$HEXw.: converts hexadecimal data to EBCDIC character data.
$OCTALw.: converts octal data to EBCDIC character data.
$PHEXw.: converts packed hexadecimal data to EBCDIC character data.
w.d: reads standard numeric data.

All the information that you need in order to use these informats under z/OS is in SAS Language Reference: Dictionary.

Floating-Point Number Format and Portability

The manner in which z/OS stores floating-point numbers can affect your data. See SAS Language Reference: Concepts for details.

Reading Binary Data

If a SAS program that reads and writes binary data is run on only one type of machine, you can use the following native-mode(footnote 1) informats:

IBw.d	reads integer binary (fixed-point) values, including negative values, that are represented in two's complement notation.
PDw.d	reads data that is stored in IBM packed decimal format.
PIBw.d	reads positive integer binary (fixed-point) values.
RBw.d	reads real binary (floating-point) data.

If you want to write SAS programs that can be run on multiple machines that use different byte-storage systems, use the following IBM 370 informats:

S370FFw.d: is used on other computer systems to read EBCDIC data.
S370FIBw.d: reads integer binary data.
S370FIBUw.d: reads unsigned integer binary data.
S370FPDw.d: reads packed decimal data.
S370FPDUw.d: reads unsigned packed decimal data.
S370FPIBw.d: reads positive integer binary data.
S370FRBw.d: reads real binary data.
S370FZDw.d: reads zoned decimal data.
S370FZDLw.d: reads zoned decimal leading sign data.
S370FZDSw.d: reads zoned decimal separate leading sign data.
S370FZDTw.d: reads zoned decimal separate trailing sign data.
S370FZDUw.d: reads unsigned zoned decimal data.

These IBM 370 informats enable you to write SAS programs that can be run in any SAS environment, regardless of the standard for storing numeric data. They also enhance your ability to port raw data between host operating environments.

For more information about the IBM 370 informats, see SAS Language Reference: Dictionary.

Date and Time Informats

Several informats are designed to read time and date stamps that have been written by the System Management Facility (SMF) or by the Resource Measurement Facility (RMF). SMF and RMF are standard features of the z/OS operating environment. They record information about each job that is processed. The following informats are used to read time and date stamps that are generated by SMF and RMF:

PDTIMEw.: reads the packed decimal time of SMF and RMF records.
RMFDUR.: reads the duration values of RMF records.
RMFSTAMPw.: reads the time and date fields of RMF records.
SMFSTAMPw.: reads the time and date of SMF records.
TODSTAMP.: reads the 8-byte time-of-day stamp.
TUw.: reads timer unit values that are produced by IBM mainframe operating environments and converts the timer unit values to SAS time values.

In order to facilitate the portability of SAS programs, these informats can be used with any operating environment that is supported by SAS software; therefore, they are documented in SAS Language Reference: Dictionary.

FOOTNOTE 1: Native-mode means that these informats use the byte-ordering system that is standard for the machine.

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