Translation of input data (when necessary) is done by the Listener. As a result, all data on the IMS™ message queue is in EBCDIC; output data is translated (when necessary) by the Assist module.

Note that when data translation takes place, the entire application data portion of the segment is translated from ASCII to EBCDIC, and vice versa; therefore, the segment should contain only printable characters common to both character sets. (For example, the EBCDIC cent sign and the ASCII left bracket are both printable in their respective environments but are not translated because they do not have an equivalent in the other character set.)