Can we MOVE Alphanumeric field to numeric filed

s ismail · New User Joined: 09 Mar 2007 Posts: 1 Location: Mysore

I just want to know whether we can move Alphanumeric feild to numeric field.

I had moved a alphanumeric value 'sunrise' declared as x(8) to numeric field declared as 9(6) . Is this valid move..........

Please let me know ........

William Thompson · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:23 pm

No, that move is not valid. Look at Table 44. Valid and invalid elementary moves

zensa · New User Joined: 21 Feb 2007 Posts: 10 Location: India

Yes we can move Alphanumeric to Numeric & the Vice versa. But when

the same data items are used in an arithmetic operations,

compilation error will occur at the time of compilation.The thing is we

cannot move Alphabetic to numeric & the viceversa.

agkshirsagar · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:04 pm

Yes.
Cobol allows to move Alphanumeric variables to numeric variables.
Alphabetic to numeric move is not alllowed.

However if you move the data as mentioned in your question, you may encounter S0c7 when you do arithmatic or use that var in conditional expression.

dick scherrer · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:24 pm

Hello,

While many things arepossible, there are some we should just not do.

Do notmove aplha fields to numeric fields. Even if your code compiles successfully and you manage to run some tests successfully, there is a highprobablilty that there will be an abend later in production.

Suryanarayana.tadala · New User Joined: 03 Nov 2005 Posts: 43 Location: St.Louis

Hello ,
The answer would be a big NO...
Even though your code might work , I stand with Dick's comments wich are valid and you would be caught in a bizzare situation while testing in Production.

Surya

rakesh.in.in · New User Joined: 01 Mar 2007 Posts: 5 Location: Pune

You Can't move alphanumeric/non-numeric to numeric.
When u r trying to do this there must be SOC7 Abend

agkshirsagar · Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 11:54 am

Rakesh,
There won't be S0C7 for MOVE. (Check that yourself

)
When you use that numeric field in arithmatic or conditional expression then you will get S0C7.
Read the manual to get more information.

socker_dad · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 1:08 am

I had a similar problem in a large program in which I am installing a major upgrade.

The field was defined as x(10) in the old copybook, but in the new, it had been changed to a S9(5)V COMP-3. I missed this in my analysis and went testing merrily along.

Well, we use a PC-based development product called Microfocus MFE that comes fairly close to emulating the mainframe - except in this instance! MFE allowed me to move alphanumeric data to this field and use it in compares without an abend. As soon as we migrated the program to the mainframe for system testing, however, I got the the CICS version of the S0C7 - ASRA.

Oh, Calcutta!