Convert::IBM390 is a Perl module.  It supplies various functions that
you may find useful when messing with IBM System/3[679]0 data.

Functions Supplied
==================

asc2eb -- converts ASCII strings to EBCDIC
eb2asc -- converts EBCDIC strings to ASCII
eb2ascp -- converts EBCDIC strings to ASCII printable characters

pdi (Packed Decimal In) -- converts a packed-decimal field to a number
pdo (P.D. Out) -- converts a Perl number to a packed-decimal field

hexdump -- produces a hexadecimal dump of any string (MVS dump format)


One More Note
=============

*** IF YOU CAN USE IBM390 RATHER THAN IBM390p, YOU SHOULD. ***

This module is written in a combination of Perl and C.  It should
compile cleanly in most environments.  If, however, you have trouble
compiling or installing this module, you can instead use IBM390p,
which is a Perl-only version of the same functions.  This version is
to be preferred, however; in my testing, the IBM390 versions of
pdi, pdo, and fcs_xlate ran 5-6 times as fast as the pure Perl 
versions.


Geoffrey Rommel
Technical Consultant
Sears, Roebuck and Co.
grommel@sears.com

January 1999