Handling double-byte character set data

Double-byte character set (DBCS) data can appear in character columns or in columns with a graphic data type (GRAPHIC, VARGRAPHIC, and LONG VARGRAPHIC). If you need to devise edit routines that process this type of data, read this section.

Among the characters represented by the Japanese DBCS are Latin characters and Katakana characters. A Latin character has these characteristics:

• The first (leftmost) byte of the character has the value X'42'.
• The second byte of the character contains the EBCDIC equivalent.

A Katakana character has these characteristics:

• The first byte of the character contains X'43'.
• The second byte contains the EBCDIC equivalent.