Re: Minuses RE: Columns in printouts

With Qry/400 you can tell the PRINTING where you want the negative sign, but
the field in a file has the negative indicator in the last (right most
nibble) of the number field, for both packed decimal and for zoned numbers.
To specify for QRY/400 print, select "Specify report column formatting" and
put your cursor on the field you want to print with the negative sign on the
left. This field MUST be a number, and not a character field.  Press F16
(shift F4).  This will give you the "Define Numeric Field Editing" screen.
Take edit option 1 (Numeric editing choices) and make sure that you put "Y"
in the "Show negative sign" prompt, and fill in the character(s) you want as
the negative indicator.  I don't know if the negative sign will float, or be
fixed.  I think you can only float the currency symbol with this way.

The other way is to put an edit word or code. The Help for V5R4 says that
"Any negative symbol used is on the left of the value for edit codes N
through Q, and on the right of the value for other edit codes and edit
descriptions."  Again, I am not sure if the negative sign floats or not.

I don't know if this helps, but good luck.

Jim

On 11/3/06, Al Mac <macwheel99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



IBM standard for minus values is X,XXX.XX- with a hard minus at the end.

XL does not recognize this as a number ... it needs to be converted to
-XXX.XX with the minus floating immediately in front of the digits, no
matter how many digits. -X.XX  -XX,XXX.XX etc.

I want to do that on reports from both Query/400 and RPG, whether to
output
specifications or through a DDS PRTF, so it is XL-compatible, to reduce
the
conversion hassle.  Is that doable, how?