Hash Values for Comparing Files

Hashing is an ACR/Summary feature provides the ability to calculate an eight-byte hash value for an entire file. This feature can be used to determine whether the data in two files is identical. Files can be compared across platforms as long as their data is in the same format (that is, either both are EBCDIC or both are ASCII). This feature is available under access mode 5 (select all records: total/tally/hash). Hashing can be used for spool files on the mainframe and sequential files on any platform. Files containing variable or fixed length records can be hashed. Zero length, null terminated records are not supported.

Hash values can be stored as internal items or as extraction variables. To compare hash values for two different files, store internal items containing the hash values in the history database. Then, define a comparison rule to verify that the values are equal. To compare files across platforms, use ACR/Connector to retrieve the hash value from the history database on the other platform.