Phil Smith wrote: >That isn't what I asked, or at least not what I meant to ask: I'm asking about >AFTER it's back in packed form, whether most things will care if the sign >nibble has changed from unsigned to signed positive.
Well, your question was somewhat open-ended, not really SIGNed... <grin> ;-D About that sign nibble - For myself, if I don't expect to work with negative numbers, then I don't care. Generally I use only one set of numeric formats in a program(s), either signed or not. So if I use, say COMP, then I use COMP only in all programs for all operations. Of course there are unavoidable exceptions, but as John Gilmore said, I don't mix them. > (Yes, I see your example...that's, well, just plain strange!) COBOL is indeed plain strange! ;-) >Anyway, I'm left with what feels like a "Maybe". Which isn't what I'd hoped, >but is what I feared. "Maybe" you could ask more probing questions to clarify this. I hope this discussion, despite all these entertaining drifts, was useful for you. Groete / Greetings Elardus Engelbrecht ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
