Generating a new code page converter

Before you start:
  • Code page converters provides information about what a code page converter is, and about the code pages that WebSphere Message Broker supports.

If you need to support a code page that is not in the default set of code pages that WebSphere Message Broker supports, you can generate a new code page converter.

  1. Create or find a mapping data file with the file extension .ucm for the converter you require. You can download many .ucm files from the ICU Character set mapping files archive. These mapping data files are available and modifiable without restriction. An example mapping data file is ibm-1284_P100-1996.ucm.
  2. Rename the .ucm to a file name with the format ibm-number.ucm where number is a number you choose to identify the code page. Make sure this number is not already used in one of the Supported code pages. An example of this is renaming ibm-1284_P100-1996.ucm to ibm-1284.ucm.
  3. Go to ICU downloads and download the binary distribution for your platform. An exact match is not important as long as the binaries can run. If you have problems building the converter, see the ICU user guide.
  4. Extract the files from the binary distribution archive in to a temporary directory.
  5. Copy the library and binary files to a directory within the environment path and libpath. Alternatively, copy the library and binary files to directory that is not temporary and modify the environment path and libpath to include this directory.
  6. Use the makeconv tool from the extracted files to convert the mapping data file (.ucm files) into a binary converter file (.cnv file). Enter the following command to do this:
    makeconv -p ICUDATA mapping_file.ucm 
    where
    mapping_file.ucm
    is the mapping data file that you are using.

    The name of the binary converter file that makeconv produces is:

    icudt32<platform-suffix>_<mapping_file>.cnv
    where
    <platform-suffix>
    is one of the following:
    • l for little-endian ASCII platforms
    • b for big-endian ASCII platforms
    • e for EBCDIC platforms
    <mapping_file>
    is the name of the mapping data file that was converted.
    To make the .cnv file for ibm-1284.ucm, use the following command:
    makeconv -p ICUDATA ibm-1284.ucm 
  7. Copy the file with the file extension .cnv for the code page you need into a directory that WebSphere Message Broker can access. On UNIX an example directory is /var/mqsi/converters.
  8. Associate the broker with the code page converter by entering the name of the directory where the converter is stored:
    • To create a new broker associated with the converter enter the following at a command prompt: mqsicreatebroker -c directory
    • To alter an existing broker to recognize the converter enter the following at a command prompt: mqsichangebroker -c directory
    • To affect all the products and the broker command-line tools using ICU, add the directory to the ICU_DATA environment variable. If you have already used either the mqsicreatebroker command or the mqsichangebroker to specify the code page converter to be used, the broker ignores the ICU_DATA value.
You have now created a code page converter, and associated the converted with a broker.
Related concepts
Code page converters
Related reference
Supported code pages