The best way to solve a specialized task is often to write one or two utilities and a bit of glue to tie them together, rather than writing a single program to solve the whole thing.

One way to increase the efficiency of a high-bypass jet engine is to turn the fan into an open rotor, a bit like returning to propellers, but using two rings of stubby counter-rotating blades.

With all that out of the way, you should understand that an OMG IDL char is an 8-bit quantity that can represent a character in two ways.