With the introduction of the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) feature within the ESLWEB library, it is now possible to exchange files with a Host, which could be an IBM style mainframe. To allow ESL to access files which use the EBCDIC character sets used by mainframes, the FileIO library has been enhanced to read, write and append with EBCDIC file.

To use this new feature, 3 new modes have been added to the "OpenFile" routine:

•"e" or "E" = Read an EBCDIC file,

•"b" or "B" = Write an EBCDIC file,

•"c" or "C" = Append to an EBCDIC file.

Once the file has been opened, the translation between EBCDIC and ASCII is managed automatically, allowing all other FileIO routines to work as at present, but with an EBCDIC file.