Converting numeric fields to different formats

Suppose you want the summed binary values in Table 2 be readable so you can print or display them. You can use the following statements to convert the BI values to readable ZD values:

  OPTION COPY
  OUTREC FIELDS=(1,4,X,
                 5,4,BI,TO=ZD,LENGTH=6,X,
                 9,4,BI,TO=ZD,LENGTH=6)

p,m,BI,TO=ZD converts the BI values to ZD values. By default, a 4-byte BI value produces a 10-byte ZD value, but LENGTH=6 overrides the default length to produce a 6-byte ZD value.

Table 1 shows the output, which is readable:

Table 1. Converting from BI to ZD
Publisher	Number In Stock	Number Sold
1 4	6 11	13 18
COR FERN VALD WETH	000103 000019 000042 000062	000161 000087 000097 000079

Alternatively, you can use the following OUTREC statement to convert the BI values to readable FS values:

  OUTREC FIELDS=(1,4,X,
                 5,4,BI,TO=FS,LENGTH=6,X,
                 9,4,BI,TO=FS,LENGTH=6)

p,m,BI,TO=FS converts the BI values to FS values. By default, a 4-byte BI value produces an 11-byte FS value, but LENGTH=6 overrides the default length to produce a 6-byte FS value.

Table 2 shows the output, which is readable:

Table 2. Converting from BI to FS
Publisher	Number In Stock	Number Sold
1 4	6 11	13 18
COR FERN VALD WETH	103 19 42 62	161 87 97 79

You can use p,m,f,TO=f or p,m,f,f to convert from various numeric formats to various other numeric formats. You can use LENGTH=n to override the default output length.

For detailed information on DFSORT's numeric conversion parameters, see z/OS DFSORT Application Programming Guide.