I do not have rdw headers ,when it is single copybook it works with variable size true .but with multiple copybooks in used copybooks as well as combined all 4 into single copybook using redefines. Both r giving arrayindexouf of bounds exception as it might not be getting record length correctly for ebcdic file. It is working fine for txt file. I have each record starting with 01ABC1 , 01ABC2, 01ABC3, 01ABC4 which is the record id for 1st , 2nd and so on . How do I tackle this ?