File and record layout requirements

The Reformat function has the following requirements:

File types

The input (source) and output (target) files can be any of the following types supported by File-AID:

• IAM files
• Physical sequential datasets
• Partitioned datasets (a single member only, not an entire PDS)
• BDAM data sets
• VSAM datasets (including ESDS (entry sequenced data sets), KSDS (key sequenced data sets), and RRDS (relative record data sets)).

Record layouts

If you define a group with an OCCURS DEPENDING ON clause, it must be the last group in the record. A record layout cannot contain COBOL nested OCCURS DEPENDING ON clauses or PL/I REFER statements.

Unicode (UTF-8 and UTF-16) Considerations

REFORMAT accepts layouts including UTF-8, NATIONAL and/or NATIONAL Numeric fields. However, these fields are treated as "UNSP" (Unsupported field) and the UNSP limitation is applied (see Unsupported data types).