programming in "C" in z/OS

Ricardo Viegas · New User Joined: 18 Oct 2012 Posts: 39 Location: Brasil

Just beginning to learn the "C" language and trying my very first (and simple) programs in that language in a z/OS-1.13.
Reasonable experience in programming (REXX, PL/I and Fortran), same on z/OS, but not at all in C.

Made following declaration:

char name[50];

and received an error message from compiler:

"CCN3766 The universal character name "]" is not in the allowable range for an identifier. "

Suggested solution inside Messages Manual says:
"Change the universal character name to an allowable one."

But as far as I understand, the declaration needs to use "[" and "]".

Any help/hint will be very much appreciated.

Robert Sample · Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 5:05 am

There are two fairly common code pages for EBCDIC -- 037 and 1047. 037 uses X'BA' and X'BB' for [ and ] while 1047 uses X'AD' and X'BD'. If you turn on hex in your editor while examining your C program, you will find that your square brackets are one or the other of these; change them to the other pair and recompile your program. They may look funny after conversion, but they are still okay.

If you are using some other code page in EBCDIC, you should be able to find the right pair using Google for that code page.

Ricardo Viegas · New User Joined: 18 Oct 2012 Posts: 39 Location: Brasil

Hi Robert!

Worked fine using code page 1047 for [ and ]. Great!
Thanks!!!!

Robert Sample · Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 5:31 am

Glad to hear it worked.