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Conversion of Existing Programs

Utility Programs

The cross-platform compiler provides the following utilities to help you port applications from the mainframe to the workstation:

Utility Programs
Utility Description
mf2unix
translates source code from mainframe format to UNIX format.
unix2mf
translates source code from UNIX format to mainframe format.
etoa
translates text from EBCDIC to ASCII.
atoe
translates text from ASCII to EBCDIC.
objdump
prints out a mainframe object file for viewing on the host workstation.

Each of these utility programs is described in the following sections.

Note:    If your object code is currently stored in a PDS on the mainframe, you may also find the updte2ar utility useful. For details, see ar2updte and updte2ar Utilities.  [cautionend]

mf2unix and unix2mf

The mf2unix utility program translates source code from mainframe to UNIX format, and the unix2mf utility program is used to translate source code when porting in the opposite direction, that is, from UNIX to mainframe format. The syntax for invoking these utilities is as follows: 

mf2unix [option...]

unix2mf [option...]

Both utilities take source code from standard input, perform the translation, and then print the output to the standard output. The translations performed by the two utilities are different:


mf2unix Options

The following option arguments can be specified to modify the translation performed by the mf2unix utility:

mf2unix Options
Option Description
-lbl
leave trailing blanks.
-offdi
do not change digraphs to brackets.
-recfm format-type
 specifies the record format of the input file. format-type can be either a v to indicate variable-length records, or f to indicate fixed-length records.
-noseq
do not remove sequence numbers.


unix2mf Options

The following option arguments can be specified to modify the translation performed by the unix2mf utility:

unix2mf Options
Option Description
-l num
 defines the output line length, where num is the maximum number of characters in a line. The default line length is 72 characters.
-t num
 specifies the number, num, of blank space characters used in place of the tab character. If num is not specified, the default is 8.
-offt
do not replace tabs with blank space characters.
-offdi
do not replace brackets with digraphs.


Examples

In the following example, the mf2unix utility is used to translate the source code contained in native.c from mainframe to UNIX format, redirecting the output to cross.c : 

mf2unix -lbl < native.c > cross.c

The -lbl option specifies that trailing blanks should not be removed. (Notice that the < and > redirection operators are used to redirect the input and output of mf2unix .)

In the next example, the unix2mf utility translates the source code contained in the file cross.c from UNIX format to mainframe format: 

unix2mf -t 10 < cross.c > native.c

Output is redirected to native.c and the -t 10 option specifies that tabs should be replaced with 10 blank space characters instead of the default of 8.

etoa and atoe

The etoa utility performs an EBCDIC-to-ASCII translation, and the atoe utility performs an ASCII-to-EBCDIC translation. Both utilities read from standard input, perform the translation, and then write to standard output. No assumptions about input file format are made, with regard to new-lines or any other record format. The utilities simply copy the bytes while performing the translation. Also, both utilities use the same translation tables used by the SAS/C C and C++ cross-platform compilers. (IBM code page 1047 standard).

Examples

The etoa and atoe utilities do not accept input or output filename arguments; therefore, the most effective way to use these utilities is to redirect the input and output files. For example, the following command redirects the input from native, performs an EBCDIC-to-ASCII translation, and then redirects the output to cross: 

etoa < native > cross

Another way to effectively control input is with a pipe. For example, the output from the operating system's cat command can be piped to the atoe utility as follows: 

cat native | atoe > cross

In this example, the input file, native , is copied to the standard output file, cross , with ASCII-to-EBCDIC translation performed by atoe .

objdump

The objdump utility prints out a mainframe object file (either OS/390 or CMS) for viewing on a host workstation. Output from the utility is directed to the standard output file and is printed in 80-column lines, with EBCDIC characters translated to ASCII. ( objdump uses the same translation tables as used by etoa and atoe .) The resulting output is similar to what you would see if you were to browse the file using the ISPF editor under MVS.

The syntax used to invoke objdump is as follows: 

objdump [option...] object-file

The input file is specified by the object-file argument, and the option arguments can be either of the following:

objdump option Arguments
Option Description
-e Specifies that no EBCDIC-to-ASCII translation is to be performed. The output will remain in EBCDIC characters.
-h
specifies HEX ON. Each line of the output is followed by two lines representing the hexadecimal values of the bytes; as if the HEX ON command had been given in the ISPF editor.
-n
specifies numbered output. Each 80-column line of output is preceded by a line number.


Example

Assuming that foo.o is the output of the cross-platform compiler, the following command directs a dump of that object file to stdout . 

objdump -h -n foo.o

In this case, both hexadecimal values and line numbers are displayed in the output.


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