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  • Presenting the CHGATR Command

    October 20, 2004 Hey, Ted

    I had a similar problem to Jim’s in “Wanted: Qshell Output in ASCII.” Qshell was building EBCDIC files, but he wanted them in ASCII. In my case, a “Wintel” machine’s FTP client was putting ASCII files in the Integrated File System, but I preferred EBCDIC files. I found a CL command that solved my problem.

    I used the Change Attributes (CHGATR) command. This command, which was introduced in V5R1, can change the CCSID of a file. I used commands like the following to change files from CCSID 819 (the CCSID they were assigned when they were created during an FTP session) to 37 (US English):

    CHGATR OBJ('/mydir/myfile.txt') ATR(*CCSID) VALUE(37)
    

    I need to point out that CHGATR does not convert the data in the file to the new CCSID. In my case, I sent a second put command and everything was fine. Here is a portion of an illustrative script:

    lcd /temp
    cd /mydir
    put empty.txt mynewfile.txt
    quote rcmd CHGATR OBJ('mynewfile.txt') ATR(*CCSID) VALUE(37)
    put myrealpcfile.txt mynewfile.txt
    

    The empty.txt file is not really empty. I had keyed one x into it. Copying it to the IFS created a file with a code page of 819. Then I used the rcmd server command to change the CCSID. Last, I copied the real data to the IFS.

    The other ways to change a file’s CCSID that were presented in “Wanted: Qshell Output in ASCII” and “More Qshell Output in ASCII” are fine, but I wanted to mention this CL command.

    –Ken

    Thanks for bringing CHGATR to our command. As you point out, it is a relatively new command.

    You can use CHGATR against a single file or a group of files whose names match a pattern. If you specify SUBTREE(*YES), the system will also change objects in subdirectories.

    In addition to changing a file’s CCSID, CHGATR can change the following properties.

    Property Description
    *READONLY Whether a file can be changed or deleted.
    *HIDDEN Whether a file is displayed in an ordinary directory list.
    *PCSYSTEM Whether a file is considered as belonging to a PC.
    *PCARCHIVE Whether a file has been changed since the last save by a PC.
    *SYSARCHIVE Whether a file has been changed since an iSeries save.
    *ALWCKPWRT Whether a stream file can be shared during save-while-active checkpoint processing.
    *USECOUNT The number of days an object has been used.
    *DISKSTGOPT How the system allocates auxiliary storage for an object.
    *MAINSTGOPT How the system allocates main storage for an object.


    Be aware that not all options are available in every file system.

    To learn more about CHGATR, go to the IBM iSeries Infocenter.

    –Ted

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