Re: Use of %DEC with unformatted character numerics

Chris_Bougher@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> Then whats the point in specifying digits and precision? Just convert what
> is passed and throw the appropriate errors if it doesn't fit in the result
> field.
> 

The compiler uses the digits and precision to create the temporary
variable to hold the result of %DEC.  %DEC can be used in an expression;
the temporary variable couldn't have an unknown-at-compile-time number
of digits and decimals.

Jon is right that the intended use of %DEC(string) is for formatted
input like '+3.7'.  It's a difficult problem to get the numeric value
from a string like that.  It's an easy problem (however annoying it
might be) to get the numeric value from a string that contains a zoned
value.  In the case that started this discussion, the parameter could be
defined as a data structure containing a zoned(7,2) subfield, and then
the parameter could be used directly without any move or conversion.