Find invalid (non-display) characters

gcotterl · Post by **gcotterl** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:48 pm

When I upload a text file to an ASCII file in an IBM mainframe dataset then open the dataset (to browse or edit it), I get a message saying:

"Data contains invalid (non-display) characters. Use command FIND P'.' to position cursor to these"

When I do that, a display says:"CHARS X'25' found.

How can I see those find those characters in the text file?

ben_josephs · Post by **ben_josephs** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 10:24 pm

I don't understand that. But hex 25 is '%' in ASCII and LF in EBCDIC. Neither of these, I suspect, is an "invalid (non-display) character", whatever that is.

gcotterl · Post by **gcotterl** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 6:26 am

Hi Ben,

The person that created the text-file removed the "extra" characters and that fixed the "invalid (non-display) characters" problem.

Thanks for your input!!!!

Gary

redcairo · Post by **redcairo** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:41 pm

Just so it is on this thread, for future searches:

I had a similar problem which I was able to mostly-solve by using posix regex

search: [â‚¬-Ã¿]

on find-in-files to show me "non-normal" text characters that would have to be changed before I could import stuff into my corp's software. That tip was shared by one of the experts here.

gltackett · Post by **gltackett** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:43 am

I have found that the regex search string below

Code: Select all

[^\t -~]

works very well for finding any character that isn't a printable 7-bit ASCII character. (For this purpose I include space and tab as printable.)

Since it may not be readily visible, please note that there is a space character in between the "t" and "-" in the string.

jerry0503214 · Post by **jerry0503214** » Sat Dec 31, 2011 7:32 am

The person that created the text-file removed the "extra" characters and that fixed the "invalid (non-display) characters" problem.

Thanks for your input!!

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