S370FPDw.d Informat

Reads packed data in IBM mainframe format.

Category: Numeric
Interaction: List input is incompatible with binary input when this informat is specified in an INFORMAT= statement or an ATTRIB= statement using the INFORMAT= argument. SAS issues a warning and uses formatted input to read the data.

Syntax

S370FPDw.d

Syntax Description

w

specifies the width of the input field.

Default 1
Range 1–16

d

specifies the power of 10 by which to divide the value. This argument is optional.

Default 0
Range 0–31

Details

Packed decimal data contain two digits per byte, but only one digit in the input field represents the sign. The last half of the last byte indicates the sign: a C or an F for positive numbers and a D for negative numbers.
Use S370FPDw.d to read packed decimal data from IBM mainframe files on other operating environments.

Comparisons

  • If you use SAS on an IBM mainframe, the S370FPDw.d and the PDw.d informats are identical.
  • The following table compares the equivalent packed decimal notation by programming language:
    Language
    Packed Decimal Notation
    SAS
    S370FPD4.
    PL/I
    FIXED DEC(7,0)
    COBOL
    COMP-3 PIC 9(7)
    assembler
    PL4