Comp-3 To Comp - Decimal
Conversions
Introduction:
A COBOL program involves the interaction of items with different
data formats and the compiler converts these items either
temporarily, for comparisons and arithmetic operations or
permanently, for assignment to the receiver in a MOVE or COMPUTE
statements.
A conversion is simply a move of a value from one data item to
another data item.
Compiler option TRUNC(STD), TRUNC(OPT) or TRUNC(BIN) can be
used to indicate how binary data (BINARY, COMP, or COMP-4) gets
truncated. Different examples given this document holds true ONLY
for the compiler option TRUNC(BIN).
Aim of the document:
a) How the data is stored in the binary/COMP/COMP-3 packed
fields?
b) Behaviour of the COMP/COMP-3 packed fields when data is
transferred across COMP/COMP-3 fields and other non-binary
fields.
To elaborate more on the above mentioned points we will go through
few of the examples given below:
Example 1: Input Variable has data
stored with the usage as COMP.
INPUT OUTPUT OBSERVATION
PIC Value PIC Value
Claus passed Claus Received
e e (Display)
9(10) 1234567891 ü
9(10)
Comp- 1234567891 ü
3
X(10) 234567891 ?
S9(09) 123456789
123456789
COMP 1 S9(10) ?
A
S9(10)
Comp- 1234567891 ü
3
S9(09) 23456789A ?
Points to be noted:
Case 3: In this case first integer gets truncated while moving from
S9 (09) COMP to X (10). Binary format (COMP) numbers
occupy 2, 4 or 8 bytes of storage and the leftmost bit is
used as the operational sign. In this case ‘Sign’ is
associated with the first integer value i.e. ‘1’.
There are 2 ways to get the correct value in the target field:
• Use one intermediate variable of 9(10).
S9 (09) COMP à 9(10) and then
9(10) à X (10)
• Change the Picture clause of the source variable to S9
(10) COMP. In this way ‘Sign’ gets freed up with the first
integer value i.e.
S9 (10) COMP à X (10)
(=1234567891) (=1234567891)
Case 4 & 6: In case 4, it is the display which is not showing the
correct value but actually the correct value is stored
internally. In the decimal numeric type ‘Sign’ is always
associated with the last byte.
In case 6, first integer gets truncated because the target picture
clause is not big enough to accommodate the incoming
data.
Note: Binary items with nine or more digits require more handling
by the compiler.
Example 2: Input Variable has data stored with the usage as
COMP-3.
INPUT OUTPUT OBSERVATION
PIC Value PIC Value
Clause passed Clause Received
(Display)
S9(09) 12345678I ?
X(11) 123456789 ü
S9(09)
S9(09)
COMP- 123456789
Comp- 123456789 ü
3
3
9(09) 123456789 ü
Points to be noted:
Case 1: In this case, it is the display which is not showing the
correct value but actually correct value is stored internally.
In the decimal numeric type ‘Sign’ is always associated with
the last byte.
If the value stored in S9 (09) is moved to X (09), it will
show the correct value during display as well i.e.
123456789.
COMP-3 (packed decimal) items occupy one byte storage
for every two decimal digits and the rightmost byte
contains only one digit and sign i.e.
Value Comp-3, hex
+0 0C
+1 1C
+12 01 2C
+123 12 3C
+1234 01 23 4C
-1 1D
-1234 01 23 4D
1234 01 23 4F
Where, ‘C’ stands for positive value, ‘D’ stands for
negative value and ‘F’ stands for unsigned integer.
In this case we can show the byte by byte transfer as:
12 34 56 78 9F S9 (09) COMP-3
(Internally stored)
12 34 56 78 I S9 (09) (Display
format)
