[log in to unmask] wrote: : but does NOT properly translate ANY of the packed decimal fields in : EBCDIC to numeric-edited fields in ASCII. Using FCOPY I have verified : that the fields I'm looking for are still in the proper : packed decimal EBCDIC form. My mainframe people are convinced that this : situation is a compiler bug. : A example of a field is below: : Input field defined as PIC S9(9) COMP-3 in HEX: 049484071C : Output field defined as PIC +9(9) in ASCII: +9<6=647?1 : John Hornberger No translation of the field is necessary. COBOLII/iX can operate directly on that COMP-3 field. You can convert that field if you want. Make sure you don't convert it from EBCDIC to ASCII before you operate on it. Of course, I have no idea how the IBMVBS utility works.