Convert::IBM390 -- functions for manipulating mainframe data

Convert::IBM390 is a Perl module.  It supplies various functions that
you may find useful when messing with IBM System/3[679]0 data.  See the
POD documentation in the module, or "man Convert::IBM390" after you have
installed it.

asc2eb, eb2asc, eb2ascp:  ASCII/EBCDIC conversion
packeb, unpackeb:  pack/unpack and convert an EBCDIC record
hexdump:  dump memory in an MVS-like format

*** This module no longer includes separate functions for packed and
*** zoned decimal conversion.  For more information, see the file
*** TRANSITION.

How to Install
==============

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test
    make install

For more details, see INSTALL.

One More Note
=============

*** IF YOU CAN USE IBM390 RATHER THAN IBM390p, YOU SHOULD. ***

This module is written in a combination of Perl and C.  It should
compile cleanly in most environments.  If, however, you have trouble
compiling or installing this module, you can instead use IBM390p,
which is a Perl-only version of similar functions.  This version is
to be preferred, however; in my testing, the IBM390 versions of
packed2num, num2packed, and fcs_xlate ran 5-6 times as fast as the
pure Perl versions.  Also, packeb() and unpackeb() are available only
in IBM390.


Geoffrey Rommel
Technical Consultant
Sears, Roebuck and Co.
grommel@sears.com

July 1999