The decimal position in a COBOL field affects more than just the display*. It 
also affects rounding, truncation, scaling and alignment.

For example:

   Field-1 pic 99v999 value 10.100
   Field-2 pic 9v9999 value 1.2345
   Field-3 pic 999v99

Compute field-3 = field-1 + field-2 results in 11.33. Not 224.45.

* and it would need to be an explicit decimal (i.e. edited) to affect the 
display, e.g. pic 999.99.

/pedantic_mode

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List <[email protected]> On Behalf 
Of Gary Weinhold
Sent: Wednesday, March 6, 2024 12:03 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Decimal Floating Point Numbers

This reminds me in a way of number representation in COBOL.  The PICTURE allows 
you to place the implicit decimal point anywhere, which will afftect the 
display of the number, but internally there is just a fullword, or packed 
decimal or halfward, etc.  So the programmer choses whether to display, for 
example, $12345.67 (dollars and cents) or 1234567 pennies or 12.3 Thousands of 
dollars.

Where do you get to indicate whether you want LUV or RUV? Is it part of the 
convert to zoned decimal or is it an convention that an application agrees on?  
I can see what it is but I can't see how I can request one or the other in 
assemlber language.  Or is an HLL concept that some asembler subroutine 
implements for the HLL?




Gary Weinhold
Senior Application Architect
DATAKINETICS | Data Performance & Optimization
Phone:+1.613.523.5500 x216
Email: [email protected]
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________________________________
From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List <[email protected]> on behalf 
of Gary L Peskin <[email protected]>
Sent: March 6, 2024 11:30
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Decimal Floating Point Numbers

Thanks, Abe. I'm glad I was able to help. I don't really understand why they 
started with this whole LUV/RUV thing anyway. They could have just picked one 
and said that that's the representation and left it at that (no pun intended!). 
But I guess that wouldn't have been confusing enough.

Take care,
Gary

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