Picture clause in COBOL

[desika7]

Guys
Can any one tell me why do we have a report layout being declared like the one below in a COBOL program? that's the combiation of two different data types?

WORKING STORAGE
01 report-rec.
.....
10 detail-line.
.......
WR-XYZ PIC 9(13)X(6)

10 ABC PIC X(19).
PROCEDURE DIV
................
MOVE ABC TO WR-XYZ.
..................
WRITE REPORT-REC.

 

[TomKane]

It might be to pad the field with leading zeros (zeroes)?

 

[3gm]

Interesting. I've never seen this construct "in the wild".

According to the manual and my testing, mixing 9's and A's or X's results in the picture being treated as if it were entirely X's, so 9(13)X(6) is equivalent to X(19).

The only valid use I can think for it might be an attempt to document the format of a field (e.g. a SKU that is always 13 digits followed by a suffix of up to 6 characters). Given that it's almost never used and will likely confuse others who read the code, I'd stick to X(19) and perhaps add a comment or define a field like this as a group item with constituent parts e.g.

05  WS-SKU.
    10  WS-SKU-NUM          PIC 9(13).
    10  WS-SKU-SUFFIX       PIC X(6).
[\CODE]
Regards.

Glenn