As to the interchange of data, unless you run into a bunch of lazy Mainframers (they do exist) there's a lot they can do at almost zero "cost" to make it easy f

As to the interchange of data, unless you run into a bunch of lazy Mainframers (they do exist) there's a lot they can do at almost zero "cost" to make it easy for you. It is not often there is a genuine case that anyone outside the Mainframe needs to know about internal Mainframe formats. I rail against "how do I translated packed-decimal fields in language-x" questions. There's no need for them to be seen. Same with LRECL and RECFM. Text-only, explicit signs, explicit decimal-points (or scaling factors), then you can have delimited records and no worries. You can even have XML or JSON if happier with that.