Convert::ASCII-EBCDIC

This program is Copyright (c) 1996 - 1998 Chris Leach.

This program is free software; you can use, distribute and/or
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.


DESCRIPTION
-----------

This module provides two functions ascii2ebcdic and ebcdic2ascii for
converting a string from/to ASCII to/from EBCDIC, and two code pages
ccsid819 and ccsid1047.


WARNING
-------

This release is considered beta code. Handle with the appropriate care.


BUILDING THE MODULE
-------------------

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test


INSTALLATION
------------

    make install


PORTABILITY
-----------

This module has been tested on AS400/OS400 V3R7, OS390, HP-UX and
Sun/Solaris 2.5.1.  Please let me know, if there are any fixes necessary
for other systems. Thank you.

Apparently this code is not particularly fast under HP-UX. I have
been provided with an alternate coding by Aniruddha Patro which
uses hashes. I also have an earlier version using map and arrays.
If anyone is interested in setting up some benchmarking they are welcome.

The tools directory contains programs for producing the translations
tables needed by tr. Use mkrtbl.pl on you EBCDIC system transfer the
resuling file with translation to and ASCII system. Run mkctbl.pl and
copy the resulting parts into the tr statements.

CONVERSION in OTHER LANGUAGES
-----------------------------

For all those people after code for conversion in other languages.
See if you have iconv(3)
Convert this alogorithm to your favorite language.
If either of these fail consider a new job.

THANKS
------

Thanks to Peter Prymmer and Paul Marquess for bug fixes and ccsid1047
code page.

Enjoy,
Chris Leach <leachcj@bp.com>
