SIGN

Specifies which convention numeric DISPLAY items with included signs should use.

Syntax:

>>-.---.--SIGN--"convention"---------------><
   +-/-+

Parameters:

convention

The sign storage convention. Must be one of

ASCII
MF (identical to ASCII)
EBCDIC
IBM (identical to EBCDIC)
acu
mbp
ncr
realia
vax

Properties:

Default:	SIGN"ASCII"
Phase:	Syntax check
$SET:	Initial

Dependencies:

Set to SIGN"ASCII" immediately by CHARSET"ASCII".

Set to SIGN"EBCDIC" at end by CHARSET"EBCDIC".

Comments:

If you specify CHARSET"ASCII" and SIGN"EBCDIC", and either HOSTNUMMOVE or HOSTNUMCOMPARE are already on, SIGN"EBCDIC" is ignored.

The convention parameter options have the following meanings:

ASCII, MF: The Micro Focus storage convention.
EBCDIC, IBM: The IBM storage convention. It is compatible with IBM COBOL, RM/COBOL-85, and the X/Open COBOL standard.
acu: The ACUCOBOL-GT storage convention. This convention is also compatible with data produced by RM/COBOL (not RM/COBOL-85) and previous versions of ACUCOBOL-GT.
mbp: The MBP COBOL sign storage convention.
Important: The MBP COBOL sign storage convention for USAGE DISPLAY directly conflicts with that used by IBM COBOL and some other COBOLs. As a result, signed USAGE DISPLAY items in the MBP format are correctly understood only when the program is compiled the mbp option. This is unlike the other sign conventions in which the runtime can usually extract the correct value even when a mismatched sign convention is specified at compile time.

Restriction: MBP COBOL does not have the COMP-2 storage type.
ncr: This causes a different numeric format to be used. The format is the same as the one used when the EBCDIC or IBM option is used, except that positive COMP-3 items use x0B as the positive sign value instead of x0C. This option is compatible with NCR COBOL.
realia: The Realia sign storage convention. Sign information for S9(n) variables is stored using the conventions for Realia COBOL, and their conversion to binary decimal is the same as that performed by the Realia compiler.
vax: This creates numeric sign formats that are compatible with VAX COBOL. These are identical to the IBM formats, except that unsigned COMP-3 fields place x0C in the sign position instead of x0F.