This thread is giving me a bit of trouble. An IPA is internally a four-byte unsigned binary integer. By convention it is formatted externally as a sequence of four unsigned decimal integers separated by dots and with 'insignificant' leading, leftmost zeros suppressed. Each byte can of course have a decimal value d in the open interval 0 <= d <= 255. The IPA from which I am sending this is, for example,
24.62.42.175 InN order to make it sortable lexicographically just one operation is required: any and all short, less that three-digit, byte values need to be padded out on the left to three digits with zeros. For my IPA doing so yields 024.062.042.175 This operation is doable, if need be, in RPG; and it is of course doable in any adult programming language, readily for example in COBOL. Why all the pother? John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
