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What means PIC -(8)9 ?
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Gopalakrishnan V

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Joined: 28 Jun 2010
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 3:33 pm
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Can anyone please explain how this declaration works in cobol
Code:

05  OUT-CNT-MF                             PIC -(8)9.

This code is working fine. But i want to know how the size and length of data is assigned?
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Nic Clouston

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Joined: 10 May 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 4:01 pm
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What experiments have you undertaken to find out for yourself? Have you looked at the manual? have you asked colleagues? Have you written a little program with a variable defined like that and looked at the compiler output to see how much space the compiler assigned it?
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Akatsukami

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 4:04 pm
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Gopalakrishnan V wrote:
Can anyone please explain how this declaration works in cobol
Code:

05  OUT-CNT-MF                             PIC -(8)9.

This code is working fine. But i want to know how the size and length of data is assigned?


Thanks in advance

As your comprehension of written English is too limited to allow you to understand the manual, I will try to make my explanation of the phenomenon simple enough for you to follow.

Since no USAGE clause is specified, the variable is USAGE IS DISPLAY. There are eight ("(8)") floating minus signs ("-"), and one digit ("9"), making a total of nine (8+1) bytes used. Capisce?
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Robert Sample

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 4:12 pm
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Quote:
But i want to know how the size and length of data is assigned?
Did you start by looking at the data map output of the compiler to see how the compiler interpreted the PICTURE? If not, why not? Seeing what the compiler generated is usually a good way to understand any PIC clauses you don't understand.
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GuyC

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Joined: 11 Aug 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 5:44 pm
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Robert Sample wrote:
Did you start by looking at the data map output of the compiler ...

compiler ? data map?
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