Can we move from Alphanumeric field to COMP field?

Mainforum · New User Joined: 30 May 2013 Posts: 8 Location: India

Hi,

When we debug an existing code in production, we found that the value from X(3) is moved to S9(03) COMP.

The values are declared as below.

A PIC X(4) VALUE SPACE .
B PIC S9(3) COMP .

MOVE A to B.

Note: When we pass A=030 , we are getting B=300
When we pass A=120 , we are getting B=1200

We are not clear how its getting moved.

If you explain us it would be great.

Basic query:
1)Can we move from alpha numeric to COMP or numeric field? If possible, how to move a value from alpha numeric to COMP?

Thanks,
Mainforum

Pandora-Box · Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 4:13 pm

The field 'A' is ALPHANUMERIC always justified LEFT by default so spaces are treated as '0' when moved to numeric.

So to avoid the issue you could either JUSTIFY RIGHT and populate to numeric or use FUNCTION NUMVAL

chandan.inst · Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 4:17 pm

Hi,

You are getting those displays becuase of Spaces in your input data.

yes we can move Alphanumeric to COMP/Numeric fields provided it has numeric data.

For your case use NUMVAL function like below

chandan.inst · Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 4:18 pm

oops Sorry Pandora for repeated reply I was in edit mode and that time there was no reply for the post..

Robert Sample · Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 4:31 pm

There is a link to IBM Manuals at the top of this page. CLick on that link and open the Enterprise COBOL Language Reference manual. Find 6.2.24.1.2 Valid and invalid elementary moves and study this section carefully. It answers your question, completely, about all valid and invalid elementary MOVE statements in COBOL. From there, you can branch into internal represenations of data and figure out the results of a MOVE statement before you code it.

Mainforum · New User Joined: 30 May 2013 Posts: 8 Location: India

Thanks for your link.