Display +,- sign for amounts field in COBOL.

[Sanjay Mainframe]

Hi,

I want to display +,- sign for amounts field and decimal point and don’t want to suppress leading zeroes . How to declare this output variable? Please advise.

[zum13]

Hello.

Declare it as "PIC +9(nn)" where "nn" is the length you need. You can also do something like "+999,999,999" if you want the output delimited with commas.

The "9" causes the number to be displayed no matter what. A "Z" is used if you want leading zeros to be suppressed.

The "+" forces both the "+" and "-" symbols to be displayed. If you specify "-", then a negative number will show as "-", but a positive number will only give a space.

[zum13]

...just realised I missed the bit about the decimal point. You do that just by splitting the "PIC +9(nn)" definiton with a decimal point, e.g. "PIC +9(5).99" will give you a seven digit number with two decimal places.