System and method of transforming information between UCS and EBCDIC representations employing EBCDIC-friendly transformation formats

A method of transforming information from a variable-length multiple-octet representation to a fixed-length multiple-octet representation, comprising the steps of:

• (i) receiving an input character string in said variable-length representation and transforming said input character string to the same number of octets in a variable-length multiple-octet intermediate representation;
• and
• (ii) examining said character string which has been transformed to said intermediate representation to determine the number of octets representing each character and transforming each character represented by said determined number of octets to a corresponding value in said fixed-length multiple octet representation.

A method of transforming information from a fixed-length multiple-octet representation to a variable-length multiple-octet representation by receiving an input character string in said fixed-length representation and transforming said input character string to said variable-length multiple-octet representation, said transformation producing a single octet representation in said variable-length representation for a pre-selected set of input characters in said fixed-length representation.

A system for transforming information between a fixed-length multiple-octet representation and a variable-length multiple-octet representation, comprising:

• a first transform stage to transform information between said fixed-length multiple-octet representation and an intermediate variable-length multiple-octet representation, said first transform stage including a pre-defined set of characters which are represented as single octet values in said intermediate variable-length multiple octet representation;
• and
• a second transform stage to transform information between said intermediate representation and said variable-length multiple-octet representation, said second transform stage including means to maintain characters represented as single octets in either of said intermediate representation and said variable-length multiple-octet representation as single octets in the other of said intermediate representation and said variable-length multiple-octet representation.