FFRPG: Japanese characters in the compilation list are garbled

[koinumasaoko]

Hello,
This question is about something happening in the Japanese environment.
Currently, I am testing the development of FFRPG using VSCode（Code for IBMi）.
In the version 7.5 environment, only Japanese characters in the compile list are garbled.
Could you please give me some advice regarding the garbled characters?
This does not occur in version 7.4, so I would like to clarify the cause.

■Verification procedure

1. Connect to IBMi server with VSCode

2. Right-click the source in IFS BROWSER and select Run Action to compile.

3. Click Open Output to see the compilation list. However, the Japanese characters become garbled.

• The compile command is as follows.
  CRTBNDRPG PGM(QGPL/icafe016) SRCSTMF('/home/KOINUMA/ffrpgsrc/icafe016.rpgle') OPTION(*EVENTF) DBGVIEW(*SOURCE) TGTRLS(*CURRENT) TGTCCSID(*JOB)
  

■Environmental assumptions

• primary language：2930
• Version：7.5
• QCCSID：1399
• IBM PASE for i environment variables： QIBM_PASE_CCSID=1208
• CCSID of user profile：SYSVAL
• FFRPG source encoding: UTF8

■Other concerns
I set up to automatically put the source from the PC to IFS using SFTP.
In version 7.5, the STMF CCSID is 817 819,（The ccsid was written incorrectly. sorry…）
In version 7.4, the STMF CCSID is 1208, which is different.

[chrjorgensen]

@koinumasaoko

Hello,

If your IBM i 7.4 system works and your IBM i 7.5 system does not work, you should check your system settings between the systems.
Also check that your two connections in Code for IBM i have identical actions setup.
Your garbled characters is most likely a CCSID issue on your 7.5 system.

Try connecting to your systems in a SSH client and run the following commands:

qsh (note, there will be no output from this command)
system "CRTBNDRPG PGM(QGPL/icafe016) SRCSTMF('/home/KOINUMA/ffrpgsrc/icafe016.rpgle') OPTION(*EVENTF) DBGVIEW(*SOURCE) TGTRLS(*CURRENT) TGTCCSID(*JOB)"
(Press Ctrl-D to exit qsh)

If the output from your 7.5 system is still garbled, we can eliminate Code for IBM i as the cause...

[koinumasaoko]

@chrjorgensen
Thank you for your support.
I checked the things you told me.

1. SYSVAL

QCCSID：1399
QCNTRYID： JP
QLANGID：JPN

2. user profile

LANGID：*SYSVAL
CNTRYID：*SYSVAL
CCSID：*SYSVAL

3. WRKENVVAR

• WRKENVVAR LEVEL(*SYS)

 PASE_DEFAULT_UTF8           'Y'

• WRKENVVAR LEVEL(*JOB)

PASE_DEFAULT_UTF8           'Y'
LANG                        '/QSYS.LIB/JA_JP_1399.LOCALE'

4. SSH

• I confirmed the following with Putty.

-bash-5.1$ /QOpenSys/usr/bin/ps -eo pid,args~
  PID COMMAND
/QOpenSys/QIBM/ProdData/SC1/OpenSSH/sbin/sshd -R

5. PTF

• I think the PTF is the latest one.

---

When setting environment variables in /home/KOINUMA[user profile]/.profile, garbled characters no longer occur when connecting with SSH using Putty or PASE.

export LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8

There is one thing that bothers me.
Open the terminal with Terminals → PASE →
Garbled characters do not occur when you run the compile command.

qsh
system "CRTBNDRPG PGM(QGPL/icafe016) SRCSTMF('/home/KOINUMA/ffrpgsrc/icafe016.rpgle') OPTION(*EVENTF) DBGVIEW(*SOURCE) TGTRLS(*CURRENT) TGTCCSID(5035)"

However, when I execute Run Action (Create Bound RPG Program (CRTBNDRPG)),
Both the compile list and the terminal where the compilation result log is output are garbled.

[chrjorgensen]

@koinumasaoko

Why do you have these settings?

PASE_DEFAULT_UTF8           'Y'
LANG                        '/QSYS.LIB/JA_JP_1399.LOCALE'

And what happens if you run without these settings? Or with only

LANG                        '/QSYS.LIB/JA_JP.LOCALE'

I would still advice to compare the settings of the IBM i 7.4 system having no problems and the IBM i 7.5 having problems - to my knowledge, there are no functional differences between 7.4 and 7.5, and I think the problems are caused by some differences in the settings.

Be aware that bash shell setup can be different in interactive logon and command execution. Code for IBM i uses the latter (and does not sign in to any terminal), but your PASE terminal opened in Code for IBM i or PuTTY does. It is described in more detail here, but the essence is that your .profile file is not read when there is no interactive login. So be careful to put statements that sets the environment in this file, since it is not always read.

If you still have no luck in eliminating this server error, I would advice to create a support case at IBM Support. They may help you with your settings - and probably have more experience with Japanese than I do. 😆

[koinumasaoko]

@chrjorgensen
Thank you for teaching me so much. I would also like to thank you for your polite reply to my poor English.
I will check with my team members about the ENVVAR settings.
I also understood that Code for IBM i's login method is a command execution type, which executes without reading the .profile.
I think I'll try creating a case as well.
It seems like a lot of special things are happening.
I think with your help we are getting closer to solving the problem. thank you very much!

[chrjorgensen]

@koinumasaoko

You're welcome - we hope you will get this fixed soon and can enjoy using Code for IBM i to its full extent. 😃

[koinumasaoko]

@chrjorgensen
Hello!
We would like to inform you that the problem has been resolved.
This issue was resolved by applying cumulative PTFs and non-cumulative group PTFs.
If you know of any affected PTFs, could you please let me know?

[chrjorgensen]

@koinumasaoko Thanks for reporting back on your success!

Best advice I can give is to always keep current on PTF's - install cumulative PTF and group PTF's when they're updated.
If your test/development system have the same release as the production system (it should have!), then first install on test/development system (if available) and when no problems have appeared, then install on production system.