Analyzing Data › Defining Entity Types, Relationships, and Attributes › Defining Entity Type Attributes › COBOL Data Type

COBOL Data Type

Four COBOL data types are available as attribute properties for technical design. These data types are for attributes in the number domain.

• COMP—binary data items
• COMP1—internal floating-point items with single precision
• COMP2—internal floating-point items with double precision
• COMP3—internal decimal items

You can use these data types to specify the COBOL internal format to allow:

• Compatibility with externally provided data
• Better performance by allowing the data to be stored internally in the most efficient form (either storage or processing time)

Note: The COMP COBOL data types are not generated for Procedure Step import and export views. They are generated for Procedure Step local views. For action blocks, the COMP COBOL data types are generated for import, export, and local views. If the number of decimal places is defined for any numeric attribute, specified COMP COBOL data type has no effect on generation.

You can specify that attribute state flags not be defined on a view-by-view basis. This permits exact matching of the external storage format. This eliminates the movement of data that is required in the code that is generated for USE statements to match between the external action blocks view without attribute state flags and the action block view with them.