Because differences among Japanese character sets can result in longer and shorter lengths after conversion, Gateway-Library includes the TDSETSOI function that specifies padding or stripping the SO/SI indicators.
When converting from a character set that uses SO/SI indicators to one that does not (for example, converting CHAR data from IBM Kanji to Shift-JIS kanji), you can use TDSETSOI to specify whether the SO/SI indicators are stripped or whether they are replaced with embedded blanks. When replaced with embedded blanks, the length does not change. When stripped, the length is reduced by two bytes for each kanji string.
If no strip option is set, the JCM automatically strips SO/SI indicators.
When TDSETSOI replaces SO/SI indicators with blanks, the blanks are positioned at the end of the field. For example, in an IBM Kanji CHAR field that contains four kanji, the first byte contains the SO indicator, and the tenth byte contains the SI indicator. After conversion to Shift-JIS kanji, the first eight bytes are occupied by kanji, and the blanks occupy bytes nine and ten.
By judicious use of TDSETSOI, you can minimize the length changes and calculations needed in Open ServerConnect programs. See TDSETSOI for details.
See TDGETSOI for information about how to query the SO/SI processing settings for a column or parameter.
