S2PX Translations

This page list the DataStage System Variables available for use in Server Jobs and their treatment by S2PX.

Variable Name	Description	S2PX Translation	Notes

Variable Name	Description	S2PX Translation	Notes
@DATE	The internal date when the program started. See the Date function.	`DaysSinceFromDate2(StringToDate(DSJobStartDate), StringToDate('1967-12-31'))`	Type conversion functions (IBM)
@DAY	The day of the month extracted from the value in @DATE.	`MonthDayFromDate(StringToDate(DSJobStartDate))`	Type conversion functions (IBM)
@FALSE	The compiler replaces the value with 0.	No translation. `@FALSE` is available in the Parallel Engine.	Support macros and System Variables (IBM)
@FM	A field mark, Char(254).	`Char(30)`	Type conversion functions (IBM) System Mark ASCII code translations
@IM	An item mark, Char(255).	`Char(31)`	Type conversion functions (IBM) System Mark ASCII code translations
@INROWNUM	Input row counter. For use in constraints and derivations in Transformer stages.	`@INROWNUM` is available in the Parallel Engine and is used in all instances except when it is used inside a Transformer with no input links. In this case S2PX replaces `@INROWNUM` with `@ITERATIONS` to ensures the generated Parallel Job produces matching output.	Support macros and System Variables (IBM)
@OUTROWNUM	Output row counter (per link). For use in derivations in Transformer stages.	No translation. `@OUTROWNUM` is is available in the Parallel Engine.	Support macros and System Variables (IBM)
@LOGNAME	The user login name.	Unsupported	Unsupported System Variables
@MONTH	The current extracted from the value in @DATE.	`MonthFromDate(StringToDate(DSJobStartDate))`	Type conversion functions (IBM)
@NULL	The null value.	`setnull()`	Null handling functions (IBM) S2PX Null Handling
@NULL.STR	The internal representation of the null value, Char(128).	`Char(25)`	Type conversion functions (IBM) S2PX Null Handling
@PATH	The path name of the current InfoSphere DataStage project.	Unsupported	Unsupported System Variables
@SCHEMA	The schema name of the current InfoSphere DataStage project.	`DSProjectName`	DSProjectName (IBM)
@SM	A sub-value mark, Char(252).	`Char(28)`	Type conversion functions (IBM) System Mark ASCII code translations
@SYSTEM.RETURN.CODE	Status codes returned by system processes or commands.	Unsupported	Unsupported System Variables
@TIME	The internal time when the program started. See the Time function.	`StringToTime(DSJobStartTime)`	Type conversion functions (IBM)
@TM	A text mark, Char(251).	`Char(26)`	Type conversion functions (IBM) System Mark ASCII code translations
@TRUE	The compiler replaces the value with 1.	No translation. `@TRUE` is available in the Parallel Engine.	Support macros and System Variables (IBM)
@USERNO	The user number.	Unsupported	Unsupported System Variables
@VM	A value mark, Char(253).	`Char(29)`	Type conversion functions (IBM) System Mark ASCII code translations
@WHO	The name of the current InfoSphere DataStage project directory.	`DSProjectName`	DSProjectName (IBM)
@YEAR	The current year extracted from @DATE.	`YearFromDate(StringToDate(DSJobStartDate))`	Type conversion functions (IBM)

System Marks

Universe has a set of ‘System Mark’ characters which are used to support multi-valued strings. These characters are represented as fixed ASCII values, have special handling when converting to and from NLS Code pages and Unicode, and can be accessed directly using system variables. The table below shows the ASCII and Unicode Hex Values for each System Mark:

System Variable	Description	ASCII Character	Unicode Character

System Variable	Description	ASCII Character	Unicode Character
@IM	Item Mark	0xFF	0xF8FF
@FM	Field Mark	0xFE	0xF8FE
@VM	Value Mark	0xFD	0xF8FD
@SM	Sub-value Mark	0xFC	0xF8FC
@TM	Text Mark	0xFB	0xF8FB
@NULL.STR	Null String	0x80	0xF8F7

One of the first things to note is that the ASCII Character values are outside the standard 0x00-0x7F range and don't usually map to a valid character when using single byte NLS mappings. This is by design as all these values have special functionality within Universe and Server Job Transformers. The exception to this is @NULL.STR which typically maps to the Euro Symbol €, however the euro symbol (0x80) was introduced long after these values were introduced to Universe.

Due to the way multi-byte character encodings such as UTF-8 write characters outside the 0x00-0x7F range, none of the ASCII character values can be used directly. Instead they are translated to Unicode code points in one of the higher plane ranges.

As a direct consequence of the ASCII and Unicode character values used by Universe, there is no way to support these characters in Parallel without potentially causing NLS encoding issues. Evidence indicates that the vast majority of DataStage users only use these mark fields as superficial delimiters, therefore S2PX uses a different encoding for these variables that are within the simple 0x00-0x7F ASCII range, avoiding potential NLS issues:

System Variable	ASCII Character (Hex)	ASCII Character (Dec)	ASCII Character Name

System Variable	ASCII Character (Hex)	ASCII Character (Dec)	ASCII Character Name
@IM	0x1F	31	Unit Separator
@FM	0x1E	30	Record Separator
@VM	0x1D	29	Group Separator
@SM	0x1C	28	File Separator
@TM	0x1A	26	Substitute
@NULL.STR	0x19	25	End of Medium

The mappings for the Extract and Substrings Transformer functions account for the S2PX-specific encodings of these marks.

Server to Parallel Migration

System Variables

S2PX Translations

System Marks

See also