Re: Perl Unpack Cobol Binary File and Fields

For BINARY data, IBM uses big-endian byte order: the most-significant byte is stored first, not last as with Intel microprocessors. The format is 2's complement.

Comment on Re: Perl Unpack Cobol Binary File and Fields

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Re^2: Perl Unpack Cobol Binary File and Fields by Anonymous Monk on May 04, 2020 at 21:51 UTC
BINARY, COMP, and COMP-4 are synonyms. Binary-format numbers occupy 2, 4, or 8 bytes of storage. If the PICTURE clause specifies that an item is signed, the leftmost bit is used as the operational sign. A binary number with a PICTURE description of four or fewer decimal digits occupies 2 bytes; five to nine decimal digits, 4 bytes; and 10 to 18 decimal digits, 8 bytes. Binary items with nine or more digits require more handling by the compiler.	[reply]
Re^3: Perl Unpack Cobol Binary File and Fields by Anonymous Monk on May 05, 2020 at 00:03 UTC
Full disclosure: "if the picture does not specify that the binary operand is "signed," COBOL will automagically disregard two's complement. (However, not the case here.)	[reply]
Re^4: Perl Unpack Cobol Binary File and Fields by Anonymous Monk on May 06, 2020 at 01:59 UTC
(The `S` picture-character indicates a signed value.)	[reply]