The following list shows the order of speed of processing data of different types. This applies to any size of numeric data item. On this COBOL system this applies to integer data items. The list is ordered fastest to slowest.
If the ON SIZE ERROR clause is used, or if the data item is non-integer, the above ordering does not apply. For example, arithmetic on such items uses packed decimal registers inside the In this non-optimized mode the order is:
However, individual cases might behave differently.