# As Natural packages a decimal (COMP, COMP 3, OTHER?

**URL:** <https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077>\
**Category:** Forum\
**Tags:** Adabas-Natural, Natural, Natural-on-Mainframes\
**Created:** [September 25, 2020, 7:25am UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077 "2020-09-25T07:25:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jargul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/da6949/32.png) [@jargul](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/jargul)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 7:25am UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/1 "2020-09-25T07:25:27Z")

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Hello, I am needing to unmake decimals that are in natural from java. Has anyone done any of this? Do you know in what format they are packaged or do you know a java library?  
Thank you very much!

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**Author:** ![wolfgang.winter](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/user_avatar/techcommunity.softwareag.com/wolfgang.winter/32/17954_2.png) [@wolfgang.winter](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/wolfgang.winter)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 7:32am UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/2 "2020-09-25T07:32:56Z")

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José,

how are you getting that data into Java ?

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**Author:** ![jargul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/da6949/32.png) [@jargul](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/jargul)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 12:20pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/3 "2020-09-25T12:20:31Z")

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I’ll tell you, the system was in a Natural / db2 environment and we migrated these tables to a Postgresql database. The problem that I have that the P (13,2) fields that were redefined within a char field are packed and I cannot read them. I put an example:

2 YEAR1\_MESES\_GL3  
2 REDEFINE ANIO1\_MESES\_GL3  
3 MONTHS1 (P13,2 / 1: 13)

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**Author:** ![wolfgang.winter](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/user_avatar/techcommunity.softwareag.com/wolfgang.winter/32/17954_2.png) [@wolfgang.winter](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/wolfgang.winter)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 12:26pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/4 "2020-09-25T12:26:42Z")

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Nice one ! (nfc)

Check into the IBM Data Access Accelerator Library

[https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSYKE2\_8.0.0/com.ibm.java.vm.80.doc/docs/data\_access\_accelerator.html](https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSYKE2_8.0.0/com.ibm.java.vm.80.doc/docs/data_access_accelerator.html)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jargul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/da6949/32.png) [@jargul](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/jargul)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 12:31pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/5 "2020-09-25T12:31:58Z")

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Thanks for the answer! The problem I have is that the information is already migrated to Postgresql! I need to be able to read that field that was migrated as a string from a Java program through jdbc to the postgresql table. IBM no longer participates.

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**Author:** ![wolfgang.winter](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/user_avatar/techcommunity.softwareag.com/wolfgang.winter/32/17954_2.png) [@wolfgang.winter](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/wolfgang.winter)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 12:39pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/6 "2020-09-25T12:39:01Z")

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This is just a class library provided by IBM, it includes functions for transformation of packed decimal data.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jargul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/da6949/32.png) [@jargul](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/jargul)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2020, 12:41pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/7 "2020-09-25T12:41:29Z")

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Oh, okay! I’ll investigate!  
Thanks a lot.

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**Author:** ![Ralph\_Zbrog](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/user_avatar/techcommunity.softwareag.com/ralph_zbrog/32/78_2.png) [@Ralph\_Zbrog](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Ralph_Zbrog)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/8 "2020-09-27T18:15:57Z")

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You didn’t specify your source and target platforms. If the DB2 data is stored as EBCDIC characters and the ProgreSQL is stored as ASCII, your embedded COMP-3 values will have been corrupted during the transfer.

Let’s take the value 40,404 as an example. In DB2 the COMP-3 field will be x’40404F’ which is alpha ’ |’ (2 spaces and a logical nor). After conversion of the alpha characters to ASCII, the COMP-3 value will be x’20207C’, or 20,207.

Another example: -40,406 becomes 20,205. That is, x’40406D’ translates to x’20205F’.

In most cases, the result is an invalid COMP-3 value.

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**Author:** ![jargul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/da6949/32.png) [@jargul](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/jargul)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2020, 4:24pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/9 "2020-09-28T16:24:39Z")

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Good afternoon, I can not find the library in the link you attached. Where could I get it from?

It tells me to use the com.ibm.dataaccess package but I don’t see where the library is.

Thank you.

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**Author:** ![jargul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/da6949/32.png) [@jargul](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/jargul)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2020, 4:30pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/10 "2020-09-28T16:30:34Z")

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Hello,

As when migrating from mainframe to Windows, the migrator converted me from EBCEDIC to ASCI and from there it was uploaded to the Postgresql base. What I was thinking of doing was before running the unmaking was run an ASCI to EBCEDIC converter.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ralph\_Zbrog](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/user_avatar/techcommunity.softwareag.com/ralph_zbrog/32/78_2.png) [@Ralph\_Zbrog](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/Ralph_Zbrog)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2020, 3:18pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/11 "2020-09-29T15:18:07Z")

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I don’t believe you will be able to correct the damage by running an ASCII-EBCDIC conversion, but this depends on what exactly happened during the EBCDIC-ASCII conversion. I suspect that many hex codes were converted to spaces and cannot be reversed properly.

As an example, I used Natural’s utility to convert EBCDIC to ASCII to EBCDIC and the result did not match the original string.

I suggest you pass the following set of “characters” through your process to see if you get your anticipated result. These are all the byte values found in COMP-3 fields, as they might be defined in a Natural program:

```auto
1 #ORIG (A130) INIT
<H'00010203040506070809' - H'0C0D0F'
-H'10111213141516171819' - H'1C1D1F'
-H'20212223242526272829' - H'2C2D2F'
-H'30313233343536373839' - H'3C3D3F'
-H'40414243444546474849' - H'4C4D4F'
-H'50515253545556575859' - H'5C5D5F'
-H'60616263646566676869' - H'6C6D6F'
-H'70717273747576777879' - H'7C7D7F'
-H'80818283848586878889' - H'8C8D8F'
-H'90919293949596979899' - H'9C9D9F'
>

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/techcommunity/original/3X/c/d/cd19967bb605d28a72d77eb83a1cae22f3df2eb8.svg) [@system](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 3:45pm UTC](https://techcommunity.softwareag.com/t/as-natural-packages-a-decimal-comp-comp-3-other/234077/12 "2021-04-02T15:45:14Z")

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