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I have a legacy RPGLE program that uses YAJL to parse JSON data from the IFS into a character column in an IBM i database table. This has been working well for years when the incoming data was basic ASCII and the table column was EBCDIC. We now need to handle a much broader set of characters. The JSON data in the IFS is UTF8, and I have a test version of the database table with the relevant field defined with the UTF8 CCSID (1208). I was hoping that using YAJL_GET_STRING to retrieve the IFS data into the database field would keep it all in UTF8, but it seems to return EBCDIC data - I'm guessing it is using the job CCSID (37 in our case) to do implicit conversion. Any suggestions for how I can get the UTF8 data into my database table?

If it helps, the IBM i is on 7.2, QCCSID 65535 (Yes, I know..... not under my control), QLANGID 37.

Please use YAJL_GET_STRING_UTF16().

Even if the variable in your RPG program is coded with ccsid(*utf8) or ccsid(1208), this should work properly. (RPG will automatically translate it to UTF-8 for you.)

But, I would recommend that you use UTF-16 in your database. IBM has always recommended that database fields use UTF-16 rather that UTf-8. It performs much better, and the support is far more complete.

UTF-8 is great for network transfers because it is smaller. But UTF-16 is the one you want to use inside your application if at all possible.

Thanks Scott - will give that a try. Your comments about using UTF-16 in the database are noted, and I will make that change.

It turns out the version of YAJL on this IBM i does not have YAJL_GET_STRING_UTF16. Must be quite old. I will get it updated to the latest version. When I install the new YAJL version, do I need to identify and recompile any RPGLE programs that use it? I will use the same library name for YAJL.

No, it's backward compatible... everything will work without any recompiles

Fantastic - thanks Scott