Data representation considerations

Different systems represent data in different ways. When data is moved from one system to another, data conversion must sometimes be performed. Products supporting DRDA(R) will automatically perform any necessary conversions at the receiving system.

With numeric data, the information needed to perform the conversion is the data type and the sending system's environment type. For example, when a floating-point variable from a DB2 UDB for iSeries application requester is assigned to a column of a table at an z/OS application server, the number is converted from IEEE format to System/370* format.

With character and graphic data, the data type and the environment type of the sending system are not sufficient. Additional information is needed to convert character and graphic strings. String conversion depends on both the coded character set of the data and the operation to be done with that data. String conversions are done in accordance with the IBM(R) Character Data Representation Architecture (CDRA). For more information about character conversion, refer to the book Character Data Representation Architecture Level 1 Reference, SC09-1390.