Comments on: Converting AS/400 negative numeric to character with leading zeros http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/converting-negative-numeric-to-character-with-leading-zeros/ Sun, 26 May 2013 01:40:27 +0000 hourly 1 By: philpl1jb http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/converting-negative-numeric-to-character-with-leading-zeros/#comment-84844 philpl1jb Sat, 04 Dec 2010 15:37:53 +0000 #comment-84844 2. Really 11 wide for positive and 12 wide for negative???? justified left or right?
Sorry .. negative!!!
What are you using? RPGLE? (RPG IV) or SQL or COBOL or QUERY.
Phil

]]> By: philpl1jb http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/converting-negative-numeric-to-character-with-leading-zeros/#comment-84831 philpl1jb Sat, 04 Dec 2010 01:03:26 +0000 #comment-84831 Please confirm
1. You want these formats?
Positive Amount : 00005679.05
Negative Amount: 00000-500.25 <– this is most unusual!!!
2. Really 11 wide for positive and 12 wide for numeric???? justified left or right?
3. What are you using RPGLE?
Phil

]]> By: tomliotta http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/converting-negative-numeric-to-character-with-leading-zeros/#comment-84782 tomliotta Fri, 03 Dec 2010 02:59:50 +0000 #comment-84782 Negative Amount: 00000-500.25 = -500.25

What does that mean?

Are you saying that you have “00000-500.25″ in a variable and you want to convert it to “-500.25″ in another variable? Or do you want to convert “-500.25″ to “00000-500.25″? Or was the first value just typed incorrectly? Neither of those two values are “numeric”.

What exactly are you trying to do? What are the field definitions and what are some actual example values?

And maybe we should ask why you’re doing it in program code? Usually a minus or plus sign is irrelevant in a numeric program variable. The signs are usually only meaningful to humans when they’re actually looking at a display or a printed report. The sign characters are normally generated automatically by the output specifications, not by program code.

It’s true that there are situations where this should be done in program variables, but I’d sure hate to find out that it all came from a misunderstanding of how to control output! It seems like there are almost too many questions like this.

Tom

]]>