Pseudo-CCSID Neutrality

When a program is compiled with UTF support, the runtime allows more than just UTF-8 characters, and it essentially becomes CCSID neutral. The runtime handles whatever CCSID is contained within the current locale. By default, when a program is compiled with UTF support, the locale that is loaded is a UTF-8 (CCSID 1208) locale. This allows the runtime to handle CCSID 1208. If the setlocale() function is called to set the locale to an EBCDIC locale (for example, a CCSID 37 locale), the runtime handles CCSID 37. This, along with the #pragma convert support within the compiler, can be used to provide international application support. Here is an example:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <locale.h>

int main() {
   /* This string is in CCSID 1208 */
   printf("Hello World\n");

   /* Change locale to a CCSID 37 locale */
   setlocale(LC_ALL, "/QSYS.LIB/EN_US.LOCALE");
   #pragma convert(37)

   /* This string is in CCSID 37 */
   printf("Hello World\n");

   return 0;
}