I've been searching for s9(5)v99 but got different information and not really clear. Could someone shows how or the formula to convert. thanks
PIC S9(5)v99
isn't a number format. It's a description of how the data are stored and what it means there. For instance, a number stored as "-0010000" means -100.00.
What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to send a decimal
-100.00 to a COBOL program?
What you have shown us here is
the PICTURE
clause portion of a COBOL data declaration.
COBOL data declarations are a bit odd and take some getting used to. Here is a link to an introductory tutorial on COBOL data declarations. This should get you started.
The PICture clause you have given in your question is defining a numeric item with the following characteristics:
S
- Leading sign9(5)
- 5 decimal digitsV
- Implied decimal point99
- 2 digits after the implied decimal point
Basically, you are telling the COBOL compiler to define a numeric variable capable of holding
the values -99999.99 through +99999.99. Exactly how the compiler will fulfill this
request depends on the specific USAGE
clause. However, for numeric items containing a
fixed decimal position, the 'normal' USAGE is PACKED-DECIMAL
or COMP-3
(these are just
different names meaning the same thing). This link
provides some introductory information concerning the storage representation of packed decimal data.
Packed decimal data are useful for doing numeric computations where the number of decimal points must remain fixed.
Writing packed decimal data to a report or terminal does not work particularly well. You must
first convert it to a DISPLAY
able format. This involves MOVE
ing the packed decimal value to another
variable with a USAGE DISPLAY
attribute. Suppose your packed decimal variable was called
PACKED-DECIMAL-NBR
and was holding the value -2345.01. You could define a display variable
to hold it as:
01 DISPLAY-NBR PIC +++,++9.99.
then when it comes time to write/display the value contained in PACKED-DECIMAL-NBR
you would
do something like:
MOVE PACKED-DECIMAL-NBR TO DISPLAY-NBR
DISPLAY DISPLAY-NBR
The MOVE
converts the packed-decimal number to a character representation which you can
display in reports or on the terminal. The value -2,345.01
is displayed.