Re: Sorting a program described file -- MIDRANGE-L

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A packed field can -only- have an odd-number of digits! Because you have 1/2 byte for the sign, either count the bytes by odd numbers (1-3-5-7) until you've counted up to the number of bytes, or calculate-- ((#ofBytes * 2) - 1). Even if you describe the field with even numbers, you still get an extra half-byte once the data's stored on disk.

As far as sorting... it doesn't matter if you have a character, packed, or binary field-- sorting on the field still comes out in the right sequence.

--Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

At 11:49 AM -0600 12/24/08, Troy Foster wrote:

or 6,2

On 12/24/2008 11:46 AM, Booth Martin wrote:

I went back and looked at my source. sheeeshhh... I had already done
this back in 2003. But I had never made it work because I couldn't
figure out how to substring a packed field.

The program described file has columns 28-31 as packed, 2 decimals.
That is 7/2, right?
What is the SST? SST(field 28 4) doesn't seem right and I am not
even sure how to test it.

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