Re: Accessing flat files on the mainframe

[DamnDirtyApe]

in reply to Accessing flat files on the mainframe

My question is how do I access these flat files using a perl script to run these queries?

Depends on the file, but one common approach is:

open FILE, '<', $filename;
while (<FILE>) {
    # ... do something here ...
}

Can I use DBD and DBI to hit these flat files using the access I have available?

Possibly. It's tough to give any specific help without knowing what your queries look like, and what the files look like. If you were to post samples both, the value of the responses here will increase substantially.

[Fuism]

OK guys, heres the information. Some of the data is packed so it doesnt look like a CSV file or anything like that. Supposely some of the packed information are read vertically rather than horizontally. An example of what the file looks like :
Read more... (984 Bytes)

[Old_Gray_Bear]

WHEEEE!

If you have a SAS proc to access your data, then change the Proc Print statements to put the packed-decimal fields out in zoned-decimal (printable character) format. That solves one of your biggest issues right off the top -- If you have a MainFrame format problem, use MainFrame re-formatting tools before you grab the file. Now use your favorite FTP to get the file over from the Big Iron World into the small iron world.

Procede to read the resultant file as the normal string-of-characters that Unix expects. You will have to use substr or something simular to break up the string into records (unless you remembered to have the SAS code write the new lines for you...) and then attack each record with substr and crow-bar to get the fields pulled out of the record correctly.

Wheee what fun. (And don't even think about trying to create a MainFrame readable record on your Unix system. Send SAS a flat file and have it rebuild the pack-decimal for you.)

(Personally, I do the whole problem over on the MF using PL/1. But.)