Client systems communicate with Vantage using their own external format for numbers and character strings.
Vantage converts numbers and strings to its own internal format when importing the data, and converts numbers and strings back to the appropriate form for the client when exporting the data.
This procedure enables clients with incompatible data formats to exchange data. For example, mainframe-attached clients using EBCDIC-based character sets and workstation-attached clients using ASCII-based character sets can access and modify the same data in Vantage.