Name continuity

When you use the root (/), QOpenSys, and user-defined file systems, you can take advantage of system support that ensures characters in object names remain the same.

This also applies when you use these file systems across systems and connected devices that have different character encoding schemes (code pages). Your system stores the characters in the names in a 16-bit form that is known as UCS2 Level 1 (also called Unicode) for *TYPE1 directories and UTF-16 for *TYPE2 directories. UCS2 Level 1 and UTF-16 are subsets of the ISO 10646 standard. When the name is used, the system converts the stored form of the characters into the appropriate character representation in the code page being used. The names of extended attributes associated with each object are also handled the same way.

Keeping characters the same across encoding schemes — Figure 1. Keep characters the same across encoding schemes

This support makes it easier to interact with a system from devices using different code pages. For example, PC users can access an IBM i file using the same file name, even though their PCs do not have the same code page as your system. The conversion from one code page to another is handled automatically by your system. Of course, the device must be using a code page that contains the characters used in the name.