topic Packed decimals in Application Development and Automation Discussions

Packed decimals

Former Member — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:52:26 GMT

Hi all,

The program uses packed decimals to declare a field WRBTR(G_WRBTR(7) TYPE P Decimals 2) but inside the program while computing it is accecpting 9 characters with 2 decimals.When I try to manipulate with 12 digits in debugging mode then it is going for dump.

Could you please clarify how it is working?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Packed decimals

bpawanchand — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:01:31 GMT

The logic is very simple

for E;g

DATA :
   w_p(9) TYPE p DECIMALS 2.


w_p = '0123456789012345.12'.


WRITE :
  / w_p.

formula is 9 * 2 = 18 total

18-2 = 16 Number of digits before the decimal part begins

Re: Packed decimals

Former Member — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:08:08 GMT

HI,

In Char length with One can store the 2 intergers.

Re: Packed decimals

former_member585060 — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:08:59 GMT

Hi,

WRBTR domain is WERT7 which is a CURR data type with No of Char 13 and decimals 2

So thats why it must be taking values upto 9 digits also.

7 is only internal length for that domain.

Just check the domain of that field and any ref field assigned to it.

Correct me if i am wrong.

Regards

Bala Krishna

Re: Packed decimals

bpawanchand — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:11:22 GMT

Avinash then what can be the output of the below snippet it is giving only One

DATA :
   w_p TYPE c.


w_p = '12'.


WRITE :
  / w_p.

Re: Packed decimals

bpawanchand — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:11:56 GMT

Avinash then what can be the output of the below snippet, the o/p is one

DATA :
   w_p TYPE c.


w_p = '12'.


WRITE :
  / w_p.

Re: Packed decimals

Clemenss — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 14:01:33 GMT

Hi Murugaperumal,

you may take a look at the special way ABAP is handling currency values: In dictionary database you are forced to link the curreny field (data type CURR) to a curreny key field (data type CUKY). CUKY carries the currency as USD, EUR and so on. This determines also the handlling of currencies with less than 2 (japanese yen, no decimals) or more than 2 decimals (i.e. EUR4 used in retail prices to cope with big quantities).

If the linkes currency key field is present, it will be considered for all input/output operations.

And then, a second useful information: Packed Decimals are a concept developed when storing space was expensive: 2 digits are stored in one byte because only 4 bits are used for each character. You will not notice that except in the data definition: A length of 7 bytes means it can store 13 digits and a sign (+/-).

The Packed Decimal consept is still used in databases becauses it can save a lot of space and the store values can still be easily read because the packing/unpacking is simple and is done on a very low (hardware) level.

Regards,

Clemens