Float data type is aimed to store floating-point numbers. Depending on values, float data type can be 4- or 8-byte size. There are two parts in floating-point numbers: (1) mantissa and (2) exponent. To get a floating-point value, the mantissa is multiplied by 10 raised to the power of the …

Decimal data type is called packed because it stores two digits in each byte. An exception is low-order byte which contains one digit in the leftmost portion and the sign (positive or negative) in the rightmost portion. Positive numbers are represented by hexadecimal F and negative numbers by hexadecimal D …

Display decimal data type another name is zoned decimal. Each byte is separated into 2 parts. The first 4 bits is a zone and the second 4 bits is a value, thus one byte can contain only one digit. The low byte zone includes a sign. Positive numbers are represented …

Characters include letters, numbers, special characters, and other attributes. There are 3 groups of character data type: (1) alpha with letters: A-Z, a-z, and space, (2) numeric characters: 0-9, and (3) any characters. Characters are organized in code pages. Each code page combines a set of characters with a special …

This group of values are integer unsigned data type. They can be from 1 to 8 bytes with maximum range from 0 to 18446744073709551615. Unsigned integers don't reserve a bit for a sign and they occupy entire storage with value bits. The summary of unsigned BINARY data type can be …

This group of values are integer signed data type. They can be from 1 to 8 bytes with maximum range from -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807. Signed integers are represented 0 in the leftmost bit for positive values and 1 for negative ones. The summary of signed BINARY data type can be …

The article is served as a quick information about COBOL data types without diving into details how data is organized in code. There are 4 major groups of data types in COBOL: (1) alphabetic, (2) alphanumeric, (3) numeric, and (4) decimal. Numeric and decimal data types can include a sign …