Re: Physical File Data in a Text file !!!

At 03:19 PM 6/1/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Tim:
>
>The logical file solution is the way to go.... negative numbers are
>always lower order bit of the low order byte... which most pc's can
>handle..... 

I don't know what you mean by..."which most pc's can handle". If you mean
by this that a zoned numeric field will get transferred O.K because it's
now essentially a text field, you're correct. However, the concept of
"zoned" numerics is not universal. If you expect remote programs to
recognize and process these types of negative fields without being
specially adapted to do so, well...won't happen. The suggested logical file
method may work if you're FTP'ing files within your own organization, but
if this is a more generic application and you want your data to be openly
understood, you should really format it accordingly...and that brings us
back to...minus signs and decimal points. :-)

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