RE: Packed vs. Zoned

I'll bite.  Before true dates our shop standard for dates was 9 packed
yyyymmdd.  What are the pros and cons?  Other than having to use a poorly
documented program for calculating durations and validation, I didn't see
much of a disadvantage.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: CHARLES ROGERS [mailto:CHARLES.ROGERS@nucorsteelsc.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 7:54 AM
> To: rpg400-l@midrange.com
> Subject: RE: Packed vs. Zoned
>
>
> have you ever had to work with packed date fields?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PatrickConner@parkdalemills.com
> [mailto:PatrickConner@parkdalemills.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 10:37 AM
> To: rpg400-l@midrange.com
> Subject: Packed vs. Zoned
>
>
> The other day I was discussing the differences/advantages of packed
> numerics vs. zoned numerics in physical files.
> This was brought up by the fact that zoned becomes packed during the
> compile unless explicitly defined.
> One of the benefits of packed is that it is supposed to
> perform better.
> What other reasons are there for this?
> Also, consider packed vs. binary.
> I understand that if I define a binary field in a physical file the
> compiler will convert it to packed. Is it true that the
> packed field is
> then converted to binary to be processed at the MI level (or somewhere
> down
> there) to be reconverted back to packed on the way back up?
>
> Patrick Conner
> www.ConnecTown.com
> (828) 244-0822
>
> at http://archive.midrange.com/rpg400-l.
>