COBOL Manual for TNS and TNS/R Programs

Data Division
HP COBOL Manual for TNS and TNS/R Programs—522555-006
7-76
USAGE Clause
DISPLAY format is required for these data items:
°
Data items subordinate to a data structure that is described with a VALUE
clause or has condition-names associated with it
°
Signed numeric data items that are affected by a data structure’s SIGN clause
°
Elementary items whose data description entries contain SIGN, JUSTIFIED, or
BLANK WHEN ZERO clauses
°
See Trapping Size Errors.
•
INDEX Data Items
The description of a group or elementary data item with INDEX format cannot
include any of these clauses:
°
PICTURE
°
VALUE
°
SYNCHRONIZED
°
JUSTIFIED
°
BLANK WHEN ZERO
An index data item description cannot be followed immediately by any level-88
items; that is, an index data item cannot serve as a conditional variable.
The compiler stores each INDEX data item as 4 bytes, aligned on a 4-byte
boundary.
•
NATIVE-n Data Items
The description of a group or elementary data item with NATIVE-n format cannot
include any of these clauses:
°
PICTURE
°
SYNCHRONIZED
°
JUSTIFIED
°
BLANK WHEN ZERO
°
SIGN
If an arithmetic statement includes a SIZE ERROR phrase, the size error condition
occurs as defined in SIZE ERROR Phrase, except that in a NATIVE-n receiving
item the test is for truncation of significant bits, not significant decimal digits.
If a NATIVE-n data item used as a receiving operand specifies the ROUNDED
phrase, decimal (not binary) rounding occurs, as described in SIZE ERROR
Phrase.
Because COBOL limits literals to a length of 18 digits, the maximum value that you
can assign to a NATIVE-8 data item (by initialization with a VALUE phrase or by a
MOVE statement, for example) is the 18-digit value of -/+999999999999999999,
rather than the maximum storable 19-digit value of -9223372036854775808 or
+9223372036854775807.