Using stripped packed fields in COBOL

Most COBOL programmers would not consider stripped packed decimal, or packed
decimal fields without the sign bits, to be a valid data type. Nevertheless, they are used
often enough in the mainframe world to be recognized by some of the more popular
software packages, including SAS and Easytrieve. It is worthwhile, therefore, for the
COBOL programmer to know how to recognize and manipulate fields of this type.

Consider a traditional packed decimal field. If FLDA is defined as PIC S9(5) COMP-3
and one were to MOVE +12345 TO FLDA, the result would be X'12345C'. The
rightmost four bits, or nibble, indicate the sign, with X'C' indicating a positive number,
X'D' indicating a negative number, and X'F' indicating an unsigned number. But in a
stripped packed field, the sign bits are omitted. (Of course, such fields are then unsigned.)
The number 12345 would be represented as X'012345'. But this is not a recognized
COBOL format and any attempt to reference such a field regardless of its PIC clause
(other than PIC X), will cause a data exception (S0C7) abend.

So what if you are a COBOL programmer tasked with reading a file created by someone
else (using perhaps SAS, Easytrieve, or even Assembler) which contains stripped packed
fields? Take heart, it can be done! All that is required is an understanding of data
representation and some clever use of the REDEFINES clause.

Assume my input data is as shown above: X'012345'. I would define this field as PIC
X(3). Since a three byte stripped packed field can hold up to six digits, the equivalent
packed decimal field would be four bytes long, or PIC S9(7) COMP-3. I would include
the following definitions in the WORKING-STORAGE SECTION of my program:

01 STRIPPED-PACKED-STUFF.
05 PACKED-DECIMAL-DATA PIC S9(7) COMP-3.
05 FILLER REDEFINES PACKED-DECIMAL-DATA.
10 STRIPPED-PACKED-DATA PIC X(3).
10 PACKED-DECIMAL-ZERO PIC S9(1) COMP-3.
...and I would include the following instructions in the PROCEDURE DIVISION:

Instruction PACKED-DECIMAL-DATA
---------------------------------- -------------------
MOVE FLDA TO STRIPPED-PACKED-DATA. X'012345??'
MOVE ZERO TO PACKED-DECIMAL-ZERO. X'0123450C'
DIVIDE PACKED-DECIMAL-DATA BY 10. X'0012345C'

After the first move, PACKED-DECIMAL-DATA contains X'012345??'. After the

second move, PACKED-DECIMAL-DATA contains X'0123450C', or decimal +123450.
Finally, after the divide, PACKED-DECIMAL-DATA contains X'0012345C', or decimal
+12345. Success!