IBM Mainframe Forum

Hi All,

my understanding is: numeric 0 is 00H, but character '0' is F0H, anybody can tell me if it's right answer in Cobel? thanks,

Helen

Well, it depends. COBOL has USAGE DISPLAY, USAGE COMP, USAGE COMP-1, USAGE COMP-2, USAGE COMP-3, USAGE COMP-4 and USAGE COMP-5 numeric variables. The format for a zero is different depending upon the usage clause:
DISPLAY X'F0'
COMP-1 X'40000000'
COMP-2 X'4000000000000000'
COMP-3 X'0C'
COMP X'0000'
also note that the length of the binary (COMP) variable shown is the minimum while the COMP-3 is PIC S9 COMP-3.

Character O (as in the letter between N and P in the alphabet) is X'D6' while the lower case o is X'96'

thanks for your replay, my means is: character zero and numeric zero is the same in CObol? thanks,

For a USAGE DISPLAY variable, the character zero and the number zero are the same -- F0 in hexadecimal. For any other USAGE, this is not a true statement.

AAA Pic x value 0.

how do you know AAA is numeric zero or character zero? thanks, RObert Sample

In this case you give, it doesn't matter whether AAA is character zero or number zero -- they are treated exactly the same. In fact, you can move AAA to a PIC 9 variable and use it for arithmetic if desired. Technically, AAA is an alphanumeric variable, not a numeric variable, so things like MOVE statements will work differently, depending on the receiving variable, but a variable BBB PIC 9 VALUE ZERO looks exactly the same in a dump -- hexadecimal F0.

thank you very much, Mr. RObert sample, It's very clear!