Important note: Many mainframe installations own source code that contains embedded hex values. These hex values are handled by
Drag and Drop, or
Compare and Synchronization Monitor, in two different ways, depending upon your requirements.
- The first method, the default, is to simply translate these hex values to ASCII and hope that the workstation applications handle them properly.
- The second method is much more integrated with other Micro Focus applications, and may be the desired technique to be used. This method, will detect all imbedded hex values that translate to less than x'1f' and insert a null byte in front of each of them. This is the Micro Focus MDECONV technique, and all Micro Focus COBOL applications will properly detect this. To turn on this method, you must have set either the use MDECONV style imbedded hex processing in the configure options pulldown of
Drag and Drop, or have set an environment variable specified as
MFAIMBEDDEDHEX=COBOL. You may also mix applications and techniques if desired. One application environment setup can have this environment variable active, while another application, on the same workstation, can have it turned off.
