Moving Spaces to a numeric field?

somnath · New User Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 18 Location: India

Hi All,

I have a field B (Pic 9(9)V99) which redifines field A (Pic X(11)). Now A contains spaces. I am moving field B to another field C (Pic 9(9)V99). C is being populated with 0. How can it be possible?

Thanks & Regards,
Somnath.

DavidatK · Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 9:46 pm

Somnath,

This is due to an idiosyncrasy of COBOL and ZONED DECIMAL numbers.

First, a definition of ZONED DECIMAL (External Decimal) from the IBM Manual:
External Decimal Items are sometimes referred to as zoned decimal items. Each digit of a number is represented by a single byte. The 4 high-order bits of each byte are zone bits; the 4 high-order bits of the low-order byte represent the sign of the item. The 4 low-order bits of each byte contain the value of the digit.
The zone bits on all but the sign zone of zoned decimal numbers is hex ?F? (all bits on). The zone bits of the sign zone are as follows. Unsigned = hex ?F?, positive = hex ?C?, negative = ?D?.

So, a zoned decimal unsigned number 00000 = hex x?F0F0F0F0F0?. The hex representation of 5 spaces is x?4040404040?.

As you can see, the only difference between these two variables is the zone bits. When you moved A to C, COBOL moved x?4040404040? to C and then because C is defined as unsigned, set the sign zone to hex ?F? so you now have x?40404040F0?. You could use this variable in any way; the zones of all but the sign are ignored.

somnath · New User Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 18 Location: India

Thanks a lot Dave.

Somnath.

Sasi Kiran Patha · Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:59 pm

An addition to the above query by somnath,

When i move A to C and display C it is displayed as 000
when i move A to B and display C it is displayed as 0.

why is the displatity in the number of zero s that are displayed for the
same variable C. How does it actually matter any where if at all.

Regrds,
Sasi Patha.

dick scherrer · Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 6:23 am

Hello,

Please post the data division (the fields) and procedure division (the moves and displays) code that produced your 000/0 output.