Handling of Zoned Decimal Items
The Plug-in presents certain COBOL and RPG items as zoned decimal numbers in the binary data.
- For COBOL, such items are of USAGE DISPLAY, a numeric picture clause, and no SIGN SEPARATE clause.
- For RPG, such items contain S in position 40.
The zoned decimal format represents all decimal digits in text — except for the last byte or, in COBOL, possibly the first byte, depending on whether LEADING or TRAILING is in the SIGN clause. That byte contains both the decimal value and the sign for the whole value. The sign is specified in the first nibble (half byte) and the decimal digit in the second nibble.
The zoned decimal format is one of three variations: EBCDIC, Strict ASCII, and Modified ASCII. The Plug-in expects a particular format, which depends on the Character Set setting or forceCharacterSet input field for the Render Copybook Data or Parse Copybook Data activity. For details on the related configurations, see Data Conversion Palette.