#### BOM

#### Synopsis

    HELP:   Write byte order mark in front of the output text [FALSE]
    TYPE:   SWITCH
    SYNTAX: BOM

#### Description

If the write byte order mark (BOM) keyword is defined, then the corresponding BOM sign is written at the start of the output stream (block oriented) or at the beginning of each record. If this BOM keyword is not used, then the BOM sign will not be written (this is valid independent of the chosen encoding/CCSID). If a valid BOM sign is located in the middle of the input stream, it is removed from the data.

If you define the BOM keyword and the target charset contains only single bytes or no valid BOM sign, then no byte order mark will be written to the output file.

If an invalid BOM sign is recognized, then it will be ignored and causes no entry in the report file. If the byte order changes in the middle of text and the BOM handling switch is not activated, the conversion will stop and an error message is thrown.

By default, the write BOM keyword is set to OFF.