packed & zoned both are used for numeric data types in rpg but if packed occupies 1 byte and zoned occupied 2 bytes then why don’t we use packed?

2640 pts.
Tags:
AS/400
RPG Data Fields
RPG/400
Storage capacity
packed & zoned both are used for numeric data types in rpg/400 but if packed occupies 1 byte and zoned occupies 2 bytes then why don't we use packed always considering system storage capacity?


Software/Hardware used:
AS/400
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In my experience using packed decimal is good if you don’t interact with as400 from other plataforms.

I had troubles calling RPG programs from Java, transfers data over tcp that involves others operating systems and programming languages or managing data queues.

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  • TomLiotta
    If you are using the values for computations, then packed-decimal is a much better choice. If you are using the values for display purposes such as a product identifier, then zoned-decimal might be better. In general, the RPG language is going to take extra time to convert zoned-decimal values to packed-decimal every time the program inputs (or outputs) a record if the field is used in any kind of calculation unless you code data structures to control it. It's not largely different sending zoned or packed fields to ASCII systems when fields may be negative, so it doesn't matter much which of those are used. It's often best to create a VIEW or LF that presents the value in a more platform-independent way. Given the storage capacities of reasonably current systems, there are almost always better ways to manage space than to use packed-decimal when zoned is more appropriate. However, there might be rare situations where it makes a difference. I'd be interested in knowing about one. Tom
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