Challenges
Line Sequential (LS), Record Sequential (RS), and Variable Sequential (VS) files are legacy-format files that contain flat records and proprietary header, width, and terminator attributes. The files are incompatible with each other, and with many other file formats and applications.
You need to migrate, process, protect, and/or replicate legacy data sourced in these file formats. Few software products exist to handle them outside the mainframe environment. It would be time consuming and expensive to create custom programs for transforming, reporting on, or securing LS/RS/VS files at the field level.
Solutions
IRI delivers conversion functionality for LS, RS, and VS files in several products. Choose based on need:
Use IRI NextForm to convert these files to other formats (e.g., CSV, ODBC, XML, text, etc.), or from other formats to LS/RS/VS. NextForm also supports data type conversion at the field level, and record layout remapping.
NextForm file definitions work in the SortCL program under IRI CoSort as well. Re-use the metadata if you upgrade to CoSort for fast data transformation and reporting.
- transform the data (i.e., sort, join, aggregate, cross-calculate, etc.) in LS/RS/VS files
- convert LS/RS/VS files to other file formats and create LS/RS/VS files from those formats
- report from LS/RS/VS file sources
using a simple 4GL for layout and manipulation definitions, or a powerful, free GUI built on Eclipse.
Map one or more input files in LS/RS/VS formats to and from other file formats. Create detail, summary, or delta (change data capture and slowly changing dimension) reports from LS/RS/VS files sources. Hand off pre-sorted, filtered, and converted subsets to BI tools, database load utilities or other applications.
Use IRI FieldShield to protect fields in production LS/RS/VS files with encryption, masking, etc.
Use IRI RowGen if you need test data in LS/RS/VS file formats. RowGen uses the same layout metadata as CoSort (SortCL) and NextForm so you can easily move between test data generation and real data transformation.
