Code-Set Files

A code-set file (also called a character-mapping or charmap file) defines a code set for subsequent use by locale and code-set-conversion files. A GLS locale includes the appropriate code-set file for the code set that it supports. In addition, IBM Informix products can perform code-set conversion between the code sets that have code-set files.

When an IBM Informix product needs to obtain code-set information, it accesses one of the GLS code-set files in the following table.

In these paths, INFORMIXDIR is the environment variable that specifies the directory in which you install the IBM Informix product, gls is the subdirectory that contains the GLS files, and Z represents the version number for the code-set object-file format.

Each code-set file has the following two forms:

• The code-set source file is an ASCII file that describes the characters of a character set.

  This file has a .cm extension and serves as documentation for the corresponding object file.

• The code-set object file is a compiled form of the code-set information.

  The object file is used to create locale object files. Object code-set files have a .cmo file extension.