The command syntax essentially corresponds to the output that you get when you specify the command with -h option.
Notational conventions
< > | angle brackets are used for parameters which you may replace with |
[ ] | enclose optional entries. The effect on the function of the command is |
| | stands for alternatives. You may specify only one of the values |
Bold typeface | This is used in the "Description" sections for individual characters or In running text, these are then shown in italics. |
Special characters and blanks
If you enter special characters or blanks in a openFT command you must note the following:
Special characters must be handled specifically if they can be control characters for the corresponding command shell. I.e. they must be either escaped individually or enclosed in order that the shell does not interpret them.
Blanks act as separator for the command options and must be enclosed otherwise openFT interprets all characters following the blank as option.
For escaping and enclosing you have the following possibilities:
You escape single special characters using the backslash (\). If the backslash itself is the special character it must be also escaped (\\).
Enclosing depends on the platform:
Unix systems: single quotes or double quotes, e.g.:
ft 'partner1!file'BLANK'002' 'userid,,&xyz12'If an entry also contains single quotes (') then it makes sense to enclose the entire entry in double quotes (").
Windows systems: double quotes, e.g.:
ftexec ux1 "ftshwl -nb=12" Transunix1If the entry also contains double quotes (") then they must be escaped with backslash (\).
Hexadecimal entries
The transfer admission, the user ID, the password or the management password can also be specified in hexadecimal format in the form x'...' or X'...'.
The following applies to Unix systems:
If you enter the password directly, the single quotes must be escaped, e.g. X\'c6d9e4c5\', except the complete input has been enclosed.
If your entry is not displayed (e.g. when prompting the password on the screen), the single quotes must not be escaped.
Example
Unix systems: x\'f1f2f3f4f5f6f6f8\'.
Windows systems: x'f1f2f3f4f5f6f6f8'.
Sequence of entries
The sequence of entries in the command is arbitrary.
Exceptions to this are specifications that do not start with a minus sign in the command syntax description if there is more than one such specification, e.g.:
the source and destination of a request (e.g. local and remote file name, partner name,...)
the authorization to access the remote system, i.e., the transfer admission or the system login.
Continuation lines on Unix systems
When there is a large number of parameters, openFT commands can be very long. If you want to use the keyboard to enter commands that are longer than 256 characters, you will need to work with continuation lines. You can obtain these by entering the sequence "\" (backslash) followed by Return.
Lengths on Windows systems
In Windows systems, openFT administers commands, follow-up-processing commands and file names using the character set UTF-8. The maximum lengths are therefore based on the UTF-8 corresponding representation. Characters that are habitually used but that are not present in the ISO646 character sets (ASCII characters) have a length of two or three bytes in UTF-8 (e.g. the Euro symbol).
File name
You can specify an absolute or relative file name. The file name specified in the local and remote systems may have a maximum length of 512 characters based on the length of the absolute path name. Please note that although long file names can be specified at the openFT interfaces, not all platforms support this maximum length. For example Unix systems permit up to 512 characters whereas Windows systems only permit 256 characters.
If the file name contains blanks, they must be set in double quotes ("), e.g. "file name".
Notes for Windows systems
A local file name in UTF-8 representation may not exceed 512 bytes.
The specification of UNC names is also possible.
%UNIQUE variable
If a file name ends with %unique or %UNIQUE, this string will be replaced by another string, which varies with each new call.
This string is 14 characters long in Unix systems, 18 characters long in Windows systems, 22 characters long in BS2000 systems and 15 or 8 characters long (for libraries) in z/OS systems.
If the receiving system is a Unix or Windows system, a suffix may follow %unique or %UNIQUE separated by a dot, e.g. "file1%unique.txt". This suffix must not contain any dot.
Only the already converted file name is displayed in both the log and the messages.
Date
The date must be numeric; exactly 8 characters in the form yyyymmdd with:yyyy for year, mm for month and dd for day
Local user ID
The maximum length is system-dependent: In Unix systems, a maximum of 32 characters with first 8 characters being unique; in Windows systems, a maximum of 36 characters. When the user ID is entered in hexadecimal format, the maximum length is 64 characters + 3 characters for hexadecimal format (X' '), see also Hexadecimal entries.
Local FTAC Transfer admission
The FTAC transfer admission usually consists of printing characters and may not start with a hyphen, minimum 8 characters. The maximum length is system-dependent: In Unix systems, a maximum of 32 characters; in Windows systems, a maximum of 36 characters. When the transfer admission is entered in hexadecimal format, the maximum length is 64 characters + 3 characters for hexadecimal format (X' '). If a transfer admission consists of non-printing characters then it must be specified in hexadecimal format, see Hexadecimalentries.
Profile name
the profile name must be alphanumeric (a..z, A..Z, 0..9), up to 8 characters.
Input of openFT commands via shell procedures
When openFT commands are input via shell procedures please note the following:
Unix systems
Shell procedures with UTF-8-coded data are not accepted on Unix systems in some cases, as they are allegedly binary and cannot be executed (cannot execute binary files).
Unfortunately, this happens especially when the LANG variable is set for the procedure call in such a way that it locally indicates UTF-8 coding. This was observed on Linux systems for example with /bin/sh and with bash; ksh on the other hand can also run UTF-8 shell procedures.
It often helps to explicitly set the LANG variable again at the start of the shell procedure, e.g. export LANG=en_US.utf8. If the shell procedure is running, the commands are processed on a byte-by-byte basis without code transformation - as if they had been entered successively in a console window.
Windows systems
openFT command parameters from a shell procedure on Windows systems are recoded by the system to UCS-2. The character set from which this takes place depends on the system settings. The OEM character set CP850 is usually the default setting in the West/Central European language area.
It is possible to vary the character set before calling the shell procedure, or also within the procedure, by using the console command chcp. You can use chcp 65001 for example to run procedures coded in UTF-8. These procedures must use CRLF as a line separator; other line separators (e.g. only LF) are under certain circumstances not processed correctly by
Windows. The code table set using chcp is of no significance for the direct entry of openFT commands in a console window; the interpretation corresponds to the description in the console window.
It is recommended to create and edit procedures coded in UTF-8 using the openFT edtior (with ftedit -ccs=utf8), because Windows editors mostly write a BOM (byte order mask) at the start of the procedure file, which is interpreted as part of the first command during the call.