HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
Column 8
Data Type
The Column 8 entry tells XSORT how to interpret data during the compare
operations. To do this, the program must first be told the format of the
data that is to be compared.
XSORT accepts data in three formats:
Character (C) A character is an 8-bit pattern (byte) which represents
a single alphabetic, numeric, special, or control symbol
based on the American Standard Code for Information
Interchange (ASCII).
Packed (P) Packed numerical data is compacted by storing two digits
in each byte. Each digit is stored as a 4-bit binary
number with the sign represented by a 4-bit sign code
placed in the rightmost, low order position in the
field.
Unpacked (U) Unpacked numerical data is represented by a subset of
the full ASCII character set, consisting only of the
numeric characters (0-9) and the special sign characters
for the rightmost digit of numeric fields--positive (
{,A-I) and negative ( } ,J-R).