Re: Summary of responses - Conversion to C++

wws@renaissance.cray.com (Walter Spector) writes:


      Of all the things you have mentioned, isn't the above mentioned lack
      of a decimal data type the most problematic? Decimal data types are
      are fundamental and important in most COBOL applications. I have a
      hard time seeing how this could be done efficiently in C/C++.


      [Cobol doesn't require decimal arithmetic, although it makes the
      implementation easier. Careful use of fixed point with scaling should
      be adequate. -John]


And indeed, DEC says transitioning COBOL support from VAXen (which have
decimal arithmetic in hardware) to AXPs (which don't) was made easy because
the AXP's 64 bit integers have enough precision for the COBOL standard that
they can be used to implement decimal arithmetic.


Jan
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