Ah! I knew someone out there was paying attention in math class. Thanks. <OT> The VB issue is complex. VB.Net breaks a whole lot of VB6. It will probably break this program somewhere, but the program is for internal use only in a software company, so we're used to broken software <g>, and there's no reason to go to VB.Net with it unless we want to. OTOH, hopefully there won't be any 64-bit issues. The value in question (that is, the underlying data) will always be a 32-bit (or 31-bit, if you will) value, and is declared as such in the program. </OT>
Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 4:45 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Simulating SRL in integer arithmetic I think we can be more formal than empirical here. Clearing the sign bit of a negative number is equivalent to subtracting 2^31. Then dividing by 2^8 yields a result biased by negative 2^23 (0x800000), which is set right by adding the bias back in. But that algorithm will break when 64-bit Visual Basic arrives. Perhaps similar compatibility issues are delaying the advent of 64-bit COBOL. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
