IBM MAINFRAME HELP FORUMS for COBOL, JCL, CICS, DB2, IMS etc...

kalpana · Joined: 19 Nov 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Banglore

COuld any please suggest me code for converting character field to packed field

can i use PACK command

Garry Carroll · Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 130 Location: Dublin, Ireland

Depends on which language you're using.

For Assembler, use the PACK instruction. For PL/1 have a PIC declare of your CHAR field and assign the PIC to the DECIMAL FIXED field.

e.g. Code:
DCL CHAR_FIELD CHAR(5);
DCL PIC_FIELD PIC'(5)9' BASED(ADDR(CHAR_FIELD));
DCL DEC_FIELD DEC FIXED(5);

CHAR_FIELD = '12345';
DEC_FIELD = PIC_FIELD;

Regards,
Garry

kalpana · Joined: 19 Nov 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Banglore

Iam using Assembler..

I want code for the conversion

Garry Carroll · Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 130 Location: Dublin, Ireland

Both operands have length fields Code:

PACK DOUBLE,0(4,R8)
.
.
.
.
.
DOUBLE DS D
will pack a 4-character field at R8 into the doubelword field named DOUBLE.

This could also be coded as
Code:
PACK 0(8,DOUBLE),0(4,R8)

Regards,
Garry.

kalpana · Joined: 19 Nov 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Banglore

Actually my requirement F_nomval is a character filed of 16 bytes

i have stored value 4.000000 thru screen

i declard F_nv_pack as double word

PACK F_nv_pack,f_nomval

i checked the value of f_nv_pack by putting delibrate dump

but iam getting value 0 in the F_nv_pack field

could any one help me with query???

Many thanks in advance

Kalpana

enrico-sorichetti · Joined: 14 Mar 2007 Posts: 2565 Location: italy

there is very little that we can do from here

PACK/unpack are two of the most simple and most dumb instructions ...
review its description in the manual

- they will take anything as input an build the output according to the specifications
- they will never program check for data exception
- they are GIGO ( garbage in garbage out ) instruction

murugan_mf · Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 18 Location: Chennai, India

Code: DCL CHAR_FIELD CHAR(5);
DCL PIC_FIELD PIC'(5)9' BASED(ADDR(CHAR_FIELD));
DCL DEC_FIELD DEC FIXED(5);

CHAR_FIELD = '12345';
DEC_FIELD = PIC_FIELD;

What is the need of using based?
can't we directly assign

Craq Giegerich · Joined: 19 May 2007 Posts: 964 Location: Virginia, USA

kalpana wrote: Actually my requirement F_nomval is a character filed of 16 bytes

i have stored value 4.000000 thru screen

i declard F_nv_pack as double word

PACK F_nv_pack,f_nomval

i checked the value of f_nv_pack by putting delibrate dump

but iam getting value 0 in the F_nv_pack field

could any one help me with query???

Many thanks in advance

Kalpana

4.000000 is not 16 bytes and it can not be packed since it is not numeric. In assembler the programmer has to keep track of where the decimal point is suppose to be.

Garry Carroll · Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 130 Location: Dublin, Ireland

Hi Murugan,
Quote: What is the need of using based?
This is for PL/1 only. "BASED" is used to overlay the CHAR field with a PIC field. You could also use DEFINED to achieve the same result, but DEFINE is, IMHO, less flexible.

Quote: can't we directly assign
No, You can't assign a CHAR field directly into a DECIMAL FIXED field.

Regards,
Garry.