I have a bunch of data files along with COBOL copybooks. I need to convert these COBOL data files to ascii. I suspect I'll need to use pack/unpack to get at these data, but I don't have the foggiest notion where to begin. I do have perlpacktut and Pack/Unpack Tutorial, I have not read them as yet but will start as soon as I finish this post.

The copybooks I have look like this:

        01  CLASS-OUT.
            05  CCNUM-OUT               PIC  X(14).
            05  CCDESC-OUT              PIC  X(40).
            05  CL-OUT                  PIC  X(14).
            05  CLDESC-OUT              PIC  X(38).

[download]
or 
       01  MASTER-OUT REDEFINES HEADER-RECORD.
            05  CC-NUMBER                   PIC  9(04).
            05  MTD-UNITS                   PIC  S9(07).
            05  MTD-DOLLARS                 PIC  S9(09).
            05  INV-ON-HAND                 PIC  S9(07).

[download]
I also have a COBOL reference that tells me that 'PIC X(14).' tells me that the data field is a 14-byte alpha-numeric field and that PIC S9(07) is a 7-byte signed integer. I'm just not sure how to get Perl to pass this as ascii.

I would really appreciate any suggetions on how to start.

Thanks!!!

Update: This is on an HP-UX with Perl 5.6.1

Sweetblood

In reply to COBOL to ascii conversions by sweetblood

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