Code page changes

Why and when to perform this task

WebSphere Application Server for z/OS V5 or higher is much closer to the other WebSphere Application Server platforms in how it treats code page issues. This improvement should allow greater portability of applications from other platforms or from the development environment. Encoding changes should no longer be required as part of deployment.

If you are migrating from WebSphere Application Server Standard Edition V3.5, you should be aware of the following potential migration issues:

  1. V3.5 supports JSP .91, 1.0, and 1.1 specification levels. JSPs that were configured as .91 or 1.0 levels required the JSP source files to be stored in EBCDIC encoding. JSP specification level 1.1 clarifies the requirements for content of JSPs. Minimally they must be stored in ISO-88590-1 (US ASCII) encoding or a proper derivative. To successfully migrate your level .91, and 1.0 JSPs to V5.0 or higher, you must convert the source files to ASCII encoding.
  2. V3.5 requires property files and resources bundles that were loaded from an open directory by the application server class loader to be encoded as EBCDIC. In V5 or higher, any resource bundles or property files that are used by your application that had previously been converted to EBCDIC encoding must be changed to ASCII before deployment.

    Note: Properties or resource bundles that were contained in .jar files or that were loaded from a Web application class loader were not required to be in EBCDIC. Therefore they should already be in ASCII format.

  3. V3.5 does not override the default native file encoding of the JVM. This implies that the default file encoding used by the JVM in V3.5 is assumed to be CP1047 - EBCDIC.

    Even though the Java language allows programmers to explicitly specify the encoding of a file that is to be opened and read by the JVM, many programmers do not take advantage of this capability and rely on the default encoding. V5 or higher should improve portability of applications by starting the JVM with a default file encoding of ISO-8859-1 (US ASCII). This implies that applications that rely on JVM behavior instead of explicit specification of encoding will be able to execute unchanged on a WebSphere Application Server for z/OS V5 or higher system. If you have applications which access EBCDIC encoded files, you must ensure that they explicitly specify this encoding in the application code, or you must change the encoding of the target file to match this new JVM setting.

    Note: If you have applications which access EBCDIC encoded files, you need to insure that they are explicitly specifying this encoding in the application code or change the encoding of the target file to match the new JVM setting.


Related tasks
Migrating from V3.5 Standard Edition (SE)
Related reference
Migrating from V4.0.1



Searchable topic ID:   rinscodepage35z
Last updated: Jun 21, 2007 9:56:50 PM CDT    WebSphere Application Server for z/OS, Version 5.0.2
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