You can control how the computer internally stores your numeric data items by coding the USAGE clause in your data description entries. The numeric data you use in your program will be one of the formats available with ILE COBOL:
COMP-4 is synonymous with BINARY, and COMP and COMP-3 are synonymous with PACKED-DECIMAL.
Regardless of which USAGE clause you use to control the computer's internal representation of the value, you use the same PICTURE clause conventions and decimal value in the VALUE clause, except for floating-point data.
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