What's past is prologue. There are historic reasons why, for example, |&termc setc '-201' |&terma seta &termc
sets &terma NOT to arithmetic -201 but to arithmetic +201. If you want to preserve algebraic values you must use the D2A and A2D bifs or RYO. This is counter-intuitive if you do not know the history, but low-level changes in the behavior of the HLASM to make it more 'reasonable' would break many, a great many, existing routines. The bifs address these anomalies well, and with a bit more experience with set-symbol arithmetic you will use them instinctually. Your cat brain will do the work. My complaint about arithmetic set symbols is that we cannot yet do doubleword arithmetic with them. I have some homegrown SETAF facilities that do it well enough, but multiple-precision arithmetic is opaque. I have visions of being exhumed to maintain them. Happy American Turkey Day! John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA On 11/24/11, Binyamin Dissen <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:23:56 -0500 John Gilmore <[email protected]> > wrote: > > :>The assembler is behaving correctly for the macro instruction > > :>| MCGUFFIN A=QWERT > > :>The D2A bif accepts only > > :><D2A input> ::= <signed dstring> | <dstring> > :><dstring> ::= <dstring><digit> | <digit> > :><digit> ::= 0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9 > :><signed dstring> ::= <sign> <dstring> > :><sign> ::= + | - > > Thus D2A is not a proper substitute for T' > > :>If you want bullet proofing you will have to write it. > > That was the annoyance. I would have expected that T' would properly handle > a > signed number. > > -- > Binyamin Dissen <[email protected]> > http://www.dissensoftware.com > > Director, Dissen Software, Bar & Grill - Israel > > > Should you use the mailblocks package and expect a response from me, > you should preauthorize the dissensoftware.com domain. > > I very rarely bother responding to challenge/response systems, > especially those from irresponsible companies. > -- John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
