Just to add my 2 cents to this discussion, DFP numbers retain zero digits to both the left and right of the radix point. This is different from both binary floating point and hexadecimal floating point where for normalised numbers, there is a single representation of a value (this has the advantage of increasing the precision of the fraction).
DFP introduces the concept of 'cohort' - the set of different representations of the same value - and 'quantum' - the magnitude of the rightmost digit in the significand (fraction). Each member of a cohort will have a different quantum. As a result of cohorts, it is important that any comparison of DFP numbers use the compare DFP instructions - even zeroes may have differing quantums so a comparison of the binary representations would not give the correct result The Extract Biased component instruction allows you to determine the quantum of a value. While the Quantize instruction adjusts the quantum - this might be used where the value is say a balance in dollars and you just want to keep 2 digits to the right of the decimal point. Kind regards John Dravnieks
