File Format FAQ and Highlights
1. Carriage Controls: When transmitting your PARIS quarterly data to the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), make sure there are no carriage controls at the end of each line in the submitted file. If your data has carriage controls it makes the logical record length (LRECL) larger than it should be.
2. Null Characters & Carriage Controls in returned PARIS files: Some states/SPAAs have recently moved off of mainframes and onto Unix/Linux environments and are reporting seeing additional lines in the PARIS files being returned from DMDC. Note that DMDC’s programs did not change and they are still operating on mainframes. DMDC believes the line was always in the return files. However, the mainframe ignores the null characters and carriage controls but Unix/Linux does not. States should adjust for the change.