negative numbers

[bvining@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Shadrach,

What you are seeing is normal for moving negative values into character
fields for presentation.  What is happening is that the zone portion of
the least significant digit is holding the sign where D (b'1101')
represents a negative value and F (b'1111') a positive value.  In the
case of +3 that would be x'F3' which displays as a '3'; for -3 a x'D3'
which is a 'L' (in EBCDIC CCSID 37).  In the same manner -0 is stored as
x'D0' which displays as a right brace (in CCSID 37 - note that other CCSIDS
can definitely display other characters for x'D0' though).  You should be
able to find some discussion of this in the RPG reference under Data Types
and Data Formats.

What is needed for proper formatting of the numeric value (sign, decimal
separator, thousands separator, etc.) is an edit code or edit word to
be applied to the numeric value.  If you are using ILE RPG I would
suggest looking at the built-in functions %EDITC and %EDITW.  If OPM RPG
(or not RPG at all) I suggest looking at the Edit Function APIs (Convert
Edit Code QECCVTEC, Convert Edit Word QECCVTEW, and Edit QECEDT)
found in the System API Reference manual.

Bruce Vining

>
>I am creating net.data macros using RPG. Every thing to Net.data is a
>string. So when I return integers I am moving the data into a character
>field. If the number is negative I am getting a weird string. Example -50.93
>is being returned as 509L or -400.00 is returned as 4000}. What is the
>easiest way to create a normal string pattern from a negative integer.
>
>Thanks
>Shadrach Scott
>sscott@hiu.edu
>

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