RE: Passing numeric fields to COBOL program

["Weatherly, Howard" <hweatherly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Whoops! sorry about the format, forgot that things get
rearranged.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Weatherly, Howard [SMTP:hweatherly@dlsc.dla.mil]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 1998 9:45 AM
> To:   'MIDRANGE-L@MIDRANGE.COM'
> Subject:      RE: Passing numeric fields to COBOL program
> 
> Gary, 
> 
> The sign is the 'F' part of your example, if it were a
> numeric field vs. a date field, the first time any
> arithmatic operation was done on the field the 'Fox' would
> change to 'C' or 'D' depending upon the value of the
> result.
> For instance 2F - 3F = 1D (16) or 1F +1F = 2C(16). As it
> relates to dates, the sign is there mostly to satisfy the
> requirement of a packed decimal field, given the date
> 19980610 the result in a packed field (5 bytes) would be
> |0|9|8|6|0| as you can see 1 byte total is wasted in the
> high order 0 and the low 
> order sign however overall three bytes are    |----------|
> saved because in zoned decimal the byte count would be
> eight
> and would      
> look like this        | 1|9|9|8|0|6|1| 0|
> |1|9|0|1|F|
>               |F|F|F|F|F|F|F|F|               
> 
> hope this helps more than adds to the confusion.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:       Gary Lehman
> [SMTP:Gary_Lehman@mail.mchcp.org]
> > Sent:       Wednesday, June 10, 1998 8:26 AM
> > To: 'MIDRANGE-L@MIDRANGE.COM'
> > Subject:    RE: Passing numeric fields to COBOL program
> > 
> > So if I defined the field in my program as packed it HAS
> > to be hex?  This
> > may sound like a dumb question but if I key X'0070198F'
> is
> > the first 0 the
> > sign digit?
> > 
> > Gary Lehman
> > Programmer Analyst
> > Missouri Consolidated Health Care Plan
> > 
> >             -----Original Message-----
> >             From:   tuohyp@ibm.net
> > [mailto:tuohyp@ibm.net]
> >             Sent:   Tuesday, June 09, 1998 6:35 PM
> >             To:     'MIDRANGE-L@MIDRANGE.COM'
> >             Subject:        RE: Passing numeric fields
> > to COBOL program
> > 
> >             Gary, does this problem occur when you are
> > passing the
> > parameter from a command line? If so, the problem is
> that
> > the number you are
> > passing is signed where as the program is expecting
> > packed, hence you key
> > the number as a hex value.
> > 
> >             Paul Tuohy
> > 
> >             +---
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