Using an External Translation Table with DB2

External translation tables allow you to match data from input sources where the data is in different styles, for example, IL and Illinois. You can also use an external table to obtain additional data that is not available in the input source, for example, a department name, where the input source contains only the department number.

ACR/Summary and ACR/Detail allow the creation of an external translation table for the following dataset formats : Physical Sequential, VSAM Key Sequenced, User Program Accessed File, Constant Translation Data, and Web Page.

Problem

The information that needs to be extracted requires translation. The data resides in a DB2 database.

Solution

Choose from the following possible solutions :

- Run an extract against the DB2 database and use the sequential result as the translation table. To run an extract, see your DB2 Administrator.

- In ACR/Detail or AC/Summary, write a user program to read the DB2 data and use the User Program option to read and translate the data. For information about user programs, see the ACR User Program Guide.

- Run an ACR/Detail job that extracts the DB2 data through an input source, and writes the data to a User Report or Freeform Output file (UNIDAT2), and then use the User Report or UNIDAT2 file as the translation table in a subsequent step. See the ACR/Detail User Guide for more information about User Reports or UNIDAT2 files.