Introduction to FOCUS National Language Support (NLS) Services

In this section:

Overview of Steps for Configuring Code Page Settings
Overview of NLS Configuration Files
The FOCUS Default Code Page Configuration

NLS services enable FOCUS to support many different languages. Each supported language has an associated code page. In FOCUS, the mapping of graphic characters from one code page into the graphic characters of another is managed by the FOCUS NLS translation component.

FOCUS comes with the Transcoding Services Generation Utility (TSGU) program that you execute to generate the NLS transcoding table file based on the code page list of your site.

There are no additional allocations you need to issue in order to add or edit your code page and language settings. You can run the TSGU from FOCUS using the FOCUS CLIST or JCL created during installation.

Note: NLS is only supported if your terminal emulator is IBM Personal Communications (PC3270).

You can customize your NLS FOCUS configuration to:

Change your code page settings. You can specify which code page transcoding tables you want to configure for FOCUS. For more information, see Adding New or Alternate Code Pages to FOCUS.
Customize NLS default characteristics. You can change the FOCUS code page and the language FOCUS uses for error messages. For more information, see Configuring FOCUS Default Language Settings.
Customize monocasing. You can customize the conversion of letters from lowercase to uppercase or uppercase to lowercase. For more information, see Configuring Customized FOCUS NLS Monocasing.
Customize sorting. You can customize the sort sequence used by FOCUS. For more information, see Configuring Customized FOCUS NLS Sort Sequences.

Note:

Customization of your NLS configuration is only necessary if you require support for alternate or additional code pages, or custom monocasing and sorting.
If you modified your code page configuration in a FOCUS release prior to FOCUS 7.7, and you want to keep the same language and code page configuration, you can copy the CPCODEPG file, any CPnnnnn files that were modified, and the NLSCFG file from the FOCCTL.DATA library in the prior FOCUS release to the FOCUS 7.7 library named install_hlq.CONF.CFG.
When you upgrade from a FOCUS 7.7 release to a new release of FOCUS, and you want to keep the same code page and language configuration, you can copy your code page configuration files from the install_hlq.CONF.CFG library in the old release of FOCUS to the install_hlq.CONF.CFG library in the new release of FOCUS.
If you want to configure new code page and language settings for the new release of FOCUS, follow the instructions in Configuring New or Alternate Code Pages for FOCUS.

Example: Sample NLS Configuration Session

This example adds French code page 297 to the FOCUS configuration. The instructions in the remainder of the chapter describe the process in detail but, in most cases, it is a simple process.

Copy the following line for French code page 297 into the CPCODEPG file.
```
CP00297   E SBCS  IBM MF France
```
Enter FOCUS and issue the following command to generate the transcoding tables.
```
TSGU
```
Create the NLSCFG file with the following settings to change the default code page and language settings.
```
LANG=FRE
CODE_PAGE = 297
DATEOUTPUT=DEFAULT
COLLATION=CODEPAGE
```

The detailed instructions in Detailed NLS Configuration Steps first have you copy all files that may be modified or used for copying to a new location in order to leave the original files intact.

Overview of Steps for Configuring Code Page Settings

You must perform the following steps to change your code page configuration:

Review your current code page list and decide whether you need alternate or additional code pages.
Update the code page generation list of your site with the code page information required for those alternate or additional code pages.
If you need to change any of the code pages to conform to the requirements of your site or for the purpose of monocasing or sorting, edit the appropriate code page definition files.
Start FOCUS and run the TSGU to generate the new transcoding tables based on the updated code page generation list.
If you generated a new FOCUS code page in step 4, configure FOCUS to use the new code page and/or language.
While logged out of z/OS, change the session parameters in your PC3270 configuration to use the same code page as the code page to be used by FOCUS.

Verify the configuration by logging back in to z/OS and invoking FOCUS.

Issue the ? LANG query command to see the language and code page settings in effect. For example:

        NATIONAL LANGUAGE INFORMATION

Language                033/FRENCH      (FRE,fr)
Code Page               297
Client Code Page        297
Dollar                  5B($)
Lowcase alphabet        YES
Decimal notation        OFF(.)
Currency symbol         $
Date/Time format        EDA
NLS sort                NO(BINARY)
NLS upcase/lowcase      NO
NLS Control Characters  OFF
DBCS Flag               OFF(SBCS)

Display data that has characters from the new code page to see that they display properly.

During NLS configuration, some of the distributed NLS files need to be edited. In order to leave the original files intact, copy the code pages that you will edit to install_hlq.CONF.CFG and edit those copies.

Note: If you reinstall FOCUS over your current production FOCUS libraries, using the same names, the configuration changes will be overwritten. In this case, you should copy these files to another location before reinstalling, and then copy them back after the new installation process is complete.

Overview of NLS Configuration Files

The following table describes the NLS configuration files distributed with FOCUS 7.7 in alias library install_hlq.ERRNLS.DATA (physical library install_hlq.HOME.ERR):

Member	Description and Use
CPCODEPG	Description: Code page generation list. This file is a list of currently active code pages. Use: You must update this file in order to change your NLS configuration.
CPCPALL	Description: List of language codes and associated code pages. Use: This file is a reference file containing a list of language codes and code pages for all languages supported for use with FOCUS.
CPnnnnn	Description: Code page definition file. This file contains information on each code point value in the code page. There is a code page definition file for every code page listed in the known code page file (CPXCPTBL). Use: This file will not be updated unless you want to change any character within the code page character definitions.
CPXCPTBL	Description: Known code page list. This file contains a list of enabled code pages for Information Builders products. Use: This file is a reference file for finding alternate or additional code pages to add to CPCODEPG.

The following table describes the NLS configuration files that may be created by the TSGU (the utility that generates the tables required for your NLS configuration). These files are generated in the physical library install_hlq.CONF.CFG:

Member	Description
CASETBL	Monocasing table. This file contains the monocasing tables, which are generated using the TSGU and are based on the code page generation list (CPCODEPG). You only need to generate this table if you customized the monocasing options in any of the code page definition files.
SORTTBL	Sorting table. This file contains the sorting tables, which are generated using the TSGU and are based on the contents of the code page generation list (CPCODEPG). You only need to generate this table if you customized the sorting options in any of the code page definition files.
TRANTBL	Transcoding table. This file contains the transcoding tables, which are generated using the TSGU and are based on the contents of the code page generation list (CPCODEPG).

Member

Description

CASETBL

Monocasing table. This file contains the monocasing tables, which are generated using the TSGU and are based on the code page generation list (CPCODEPG).

You only need to generate this table if you customized the monocasing options in any of the code page definition files.

SORTTBL

Sorting table. This file contains the sorting tables, which are generated using the TSGU and are based on the contents of the code page generation list (CPCODEPG).

You only need to generate this table if you customized the sorting options in any of the code page definition files.

TRANTBL

Transcoding table. This file contains the transcoding tables, which are generated using the TSGU and are based on the contents of the code page generation list (CPCODEPG).

You also need to create an NLS configuration file, member NLSCFG in library install_hlq.CONF.CFG, if you want to start FOCUS using a non-default language or code page.

You must also configure your terminal emulator software to use the same code page as FOCUS.

The FOCUS Default Code Page Configuration

Code page settings are reflected in the code page generation list file install_hlq.ERRNLS.DATA(CPCODEPG). This file contains code page settings for FOCUS and it is used by the TSGU to generate the transcoding tables. To identify your current code page settings, view the code page generation list file (CPCODEPG).

During the FOCUS installation, FOCUS is set up by default with the US EBCDIC code page 37. The code page configuration for FOCUS is set up to support the following default code pages:

CP00037 E SBCS US IBM MF EBCDIC code
CP00437 A SBCS US PC ASCII code
CP00137 A SBCS ANSI Character Set for MS-Windows
CP01047 E SBCS IBM MF Open Systems (Latin 1)
CP65001 A UTF8 Unicode (UTF-8)

You can add additional code pages to this configuration, replace existing code pages with alternates, or change the properties in a code page file to conform to the standards of your site or to modify the monocasing or sorting properties of the code page.