A better way around this is to use the REALV clause of PackFmt:

   9000 DIM X$[8]
   9005 REAL X
   9010 PACK USING 9100;X$
   9015 RETURN
   9100 PACKFMT REALV X

and then pass X$ as the HP_Real parameter. I actually wrote BBXL
programs accessing the Growthpower HP-Reals using REALV. One rather neat
one I wrote copied all Shipments closed more than 60 days to an FMHIST
account and then deleted them from FMLIVE. It even computed new values
for the serial Audit Numbers (such as for COMMENT in FMSO6) which were
in arrays of 50 short HP-reals.

Wirt Atmar wrote:
>
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> > The functions EXTIN' and INEXT' convert between Real and ASCII numbers.
> >  There's an old "greenie" HP Note about using it for conversion. There's
> >  even info on how to use it for conversion in RPG!. Note that the
> >  trailing tic mark (single quote) is part of the function name (as in
> >  CALL "EXTIN'").
> >
> >  Tony Summers wrote:
> >  >
> >  > Hello all.
> >  >
> >  > Can anybody enlighten me as to translate between VB's "Single" data type
> > and
> >  > numeric data types in Cobol.  (eg. PIC S9(n)v9(m) comp sync or comp-3
> etc)
> >  >
> >  > I've managed to translate between VB's integer and long data types to
> > plain old
> >  > PIC s9(n) COMP SYNC by simply byte swapping on the HP (what my 3rd party
> > vendor
> >  > refers to as "little Endian").
> >  >
> >  > I would prefer to do the translation on the HP.
>
> Only a small note of caution to Tom's message: Any old ("greenie") note
> concerning a conversion function is very likely to convert to *HP* reals, not
> the IEEE-formatted reals that VB uses. It doesn't mean that the functions Tom
> mentions aren't of use, but you would have to add the second step of calling
> HPFPCONVERT (see:
>
>      http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/doc3k/B3265090821.13550/118 )
>
> to complete your conversion before you began your byte-order swap.
>
> Wirt Atmar