iso binary vs iso ascii vs iso ebcdic packagers

[Chris]

What is the difference between iso binary, iso ascii and iso ebcidic
packager files?
Which one should I be using?

[Mark Salter]

Chris wrote:
> What is the difference between iso binary, iso ascii and iso ebcidic
> packager files?

Which file sin particular?

A Binary packager (or field) will do now translation of the data into
the ISOMsg.

An EBCDIC packager (or field) is one that will expect EBCDIC and convert
from EBCDIC to ASCII for you into the ISOMsg.

An ASCII packager (or field) will expect ASCII and deliver ASCII into
the Strings returned from the derived ISOMsg.

> Which one should I be using?

Whatever one matches your interface - your specification will say.

It is *whole* packager that needs to match - field for field.

If you wanted to know what binary, EBCDIC and ASCII are, then try google.

8)

--
Mark

[Chris]

Thank you for your reply.

I was referring to these files:

iso93ascii.xml
iso93binary.xml
iso93ebcidic-custom.xml

They seem to be very similar, but i cant understand the differences
between them.

[David Bergert]

Different endpoints and interfaces have their own implementation of the ISO8583 standard, and can use different "data types" for each field. Here is the same message packed using each of the packagers

iso93binary   - 0100703C000000C00000165431111111111111000000000000000100000001000000040755030610063131313130303031313131313139393939393930303031

iso93acsii    - 303130303730334330303030303043303030303031363534333131313131313131313131313130303030303030303030303030303031303030303030303130303030303030343037353530333036313030363131313130303031313131313139393939393930303031

iso93-ebcidic - custom F0F1F0F0F7F0F3C3F0F0F0F0F0F0C3F0F0F0F0F0F1F6F5F4F3F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F1F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F1F0F0F0F0F0F0F0F4F0F7F5F5F0F3F0F6F1F0F0F6F1F1F1F1F0F0F0F1F1F1F1F1F1F9F9F9F9F9F9F0F0F0F1

Note these are the same messages just using different packagers.

For fun lets look at field 2 - PAN

5431111111111111

35343331313131313131313131313131

5F4F3F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1

These are the same values in BCD/Binary 

Each Field in the Packager is defined by a type:

See IF_* Classes or src for descriptions:   http://www.jpos.org/doc/javadoc/org/jpos/iso/package-summary.html

David Bergert, CISSP, CISA, CPISM/A
www.paymentsystemsblog.com

[Mark Salter]

David Bergert wrote:

> Note these are the same messages just using different packagers.
>
> For fun lets look at field 2 - PAN
>

> x'5431111111111111'
> x'35343331313131313131313131313131'
> x'F5F4F3F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1F1' // Added dropped F

And the beauty in all this is that with jPOS, once you have the Packager
set, you can just call request.getString(2) and get a String containing
"5431111111111111" in all of these cases.

8)

--
Mark

[Andy Orrock]

Additional, my "On-boarding Guide" makes some reference of sorting out
EBCDIC vs. ASCII, Display vs. BCD, etc.

See:

http://www.andyorrock.com/Specs_and_Docs/OLS.SwitchOn-Boarding_v1.1.pdf

Andy

[Chris]

10x everyone for your help