Numerics PACKED, ODD format -- Always recommended?

A minor point, but it's really selected compilers (and not *PGMs in
general) that internally default numeric data declarations to packed.
The DDS PFILE/LFILE and non-RPGII RPG compilers do; but I seem to recall
that RPGII and COBOL default to zoned decimal.  Likewise, it is up to
the compiler to determine what numeric formats to normalize to for
arithmetic operations.  C, for instance, conforms to a different set of
rules than, say, RPG.

Bruce Vining

>
>PGMs on the AS400 internally default numeric data to packed, translating zoned
>fields before use. Even length packed fields require the first nibble to be
>zero, which has no impact on DASD, but which does slightly impact performance.
>

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