8 Jan
1999
8 Jan
'99
1:53 p.m.
In <3.0.16.19990108142326.43776238(a)ricochet.net>et>, on 01/08/99
at 07:04 PM, Uncle Roger <sinasohn(a)ricochet.net> said:
At 11:48 PM 1/4/99 -0500, you wrote:
> o *DATA* - what about all those data files which have been
> recorded over the years? What form was date stored?
Working on a work-around at the moment wherein we need
to store 5 digit
numbers, but the database (deployed at nearly 400 stores around the
western US) has only 2 bytes for this field. Unfortunately, COBOL only
allows values up to 9999 to be stored in a two byte field, even though 2
bytes can (in theory) hold numbers from 0 to 65535 (or -32766 to 32767 or
so).
Ummm, it's been years (thank goodness!), but ISTR that there are a couple
of declarations that allow binary to be used. USAGE IS COMPUTATIONAL
comes to mind. Hold on, gotta peruse L-space....
Yup, that's it. COMP fields are binary. 2 byte signed on VAX COBOL, no
idea on your system. But there are several types of COMP, so maybe you've
got a variant that would work. Even if not, you can do some seriously
warped stuff with REDEFINES to get accesses to the *bit* level in COBOL,
so that two byte field can stay two bytes.
Gaaahhhhh..... I was hoping I had recovered.... *sob*
--
Dann Lunsford * The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil *
dann(a)greycat.com * is that men of good will do nothing. -- Cicero *
You've got to kick the darkness till it bleeds daylight...