I have an alpha field which contains a packed number. The packed number is in HEX format as when Focus writes a packed field to a SAVB file. I want to load this value into a packed field. It doesn't look like any user subroutines can do this, and I don't see anything in Focus which does it.

The only solution I see is writing it to a file and using a master to read it back in. This seems very inefficient.

Does anyone have a better answer?

You can read the value as alpha field and use CHKPCK function to check the packed number.

Syntax: field2/Pm.n = CHKPCK(length, field1, error, format);

Example:

DYNAM ALLOC FILE TBMIK905 DSNAME CINPRS.RM000G10.U80.E030801 SHR REU

-* FIELD=PTO1,PTO1,A8,A8,$

TABLE FILE TBMIK905
PRINT
COMPUTE PTO2/P15.2 = CHKPCK(8, PTO1, -999.99, PTO2);
...

Regards,
Mikel

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Mabel>,

It does work. Thanks! I couldn't tell it by reading the description, but, once you know what its trying to say, it makes sense.