COBOL Questions

richu · New User Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 8

hi all,
Plz help me with these questions.

1)What is highest value & lowest value in collating sequence of alphanumeric & alphabetic data elements?

2)Is the picture cluase for below mentioned elementary data item valid?
01 abc.
02 aa pic 9(4)Vxx.
3)What is the size of data item having picture cluase
(i) -9(4).99
(ii) $z(5).99CR

4)What is internal representation of :

External Value Picture Internal
------------- ------- --------
-.00123 spp999 ?

5)What is the use of USAGE as INDEX?
How is it stored internally?
What is its Picture Cluase?

Thanks in advance.......

Rupesh.Kothari · Member of the Month Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 463

Hi,

mmwife · Super Moderator Joined: 30 May 2003 Posts: 1592

Hi Richu,

1) Not sure I understand, but X'00' (binary zero) and X'FF' (all 8 bits in byte are set to "1") are the usual hi/low in the IBM MF environment.

2) No.

3) (i) 8 bytes; (ii) 11 bytes.

mmwife · Super Moderator Joined: 30 May 2003 Posts: 1592

Hi Richu,

Had to check on your last 2 ques. Haven't used them.

According to the manual, if I understand it correctly:

4) Internally, it would look like X'F1F2FD3'. BTW, externally, it would look like 0012L, not -00123. If the PIC were -PP999, it would display as
-00123.

5) It is an INDEX data item. It is used to save an INDEX value for use later. It can only be referenced by a SET, SEARCH, USING (both P.D. header or ENTRYstmts and a CALL USING stmnt).

It's stored as a 4 byte binary item and doesn't have a PIC clause (or value either), but you can think of it as S9(9) COMP.