>Mr. Ross, > >Is there going to be a corresponding PACKCHECK compiler option? It is=20
We have no plans for one, but we are very open to suggestions. I have wondered for years how a customer could actually migrate from NUMPROC(NOPFD) to NUMPROC(PFD), and something like that would help. Please submit an RFE (Request for Enhancement) at https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rfe/?PROD_ID=698 >very difficult to locate all of the assembler code that took liberty in=20 >fixing positive pack decimal fields with a sign of "F" instead of=20 >determining if the result field was signed or not. After all everybody=20 >would use a hardware internal decimal instruction (AP, CP, DP, MP, SP,=20 >and ZAP etc.) to access/process a pack decimal field! Who would have=20 >ever guessed that one of the future compilers would be smart enough to=20 >make a determination/assumption that you could just use a compare=20 >logical character instruction (CLC) to determine equality between two=20 >pack decimal fields? Or even that we might avoid packed-decimal instructions completely for processing packed-decimal data! (we use DFP instructions when more efficient) >Or, should we just take the performance hit and use NUMPROC(NOPFD) for=20 >the life of COBOL? NMost cusotmers use NUMPROC(NOPFD) and it is not much of a hit for most. >Maybe we could petition for the reinstatement of NUMPROC(MIG) You could ask, and we would most likely say no. NUMPROC(MIG) was supposed to be a temporary solution for customers migrating from OS/VS COBOL to VS COBOL II in the 1980s... >I guess we are all wondering just how much anguish=20 >NUMPROC(MIG) is causing IBM? Because, it appears to be very beneficial=20 >to some of us and less overhead than NUMPROC(NOPFD). If I remember=20 >correctly NUMPROC(MIG) only fixed signs "on input" and NUMPROC(NOPFD)=20 >does additional sign fixing. We have had only a handful of complaints, and several customers were embarrassed to discover that they were using NUMPROC(MIG) and only really thought about it when migrating to COBOL V5. They say they are going to go through the effort to migrate to NUMPROC(NOPFD). Cheers, TomR >> COBOL is the Language of the Future! << ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
