> On Aug 5, 2014, at 5:50 AM, Dmitry Yemanov <firebi...@yandex.ru> wrote: > > 05.08.2014 12:19, Mark Rotteveel wrote: > >> it seems that dtype_packed is also known in >> COBOL (and SAP) for a BCD (binary coded decimal). > > dtype_packed really seems to be a packed decimal, however it's not used > by Firebird since day one.
The origional API used by Interbase was DEC's compromise interface for the two relational databases that were developed simultaneously. The interface definition included not only entry points, BLR, and arguments but also major error codes and data types. At the time (1982) some programmers were convinced that you couldn't perform decimal integer arithmetic in binary. So packed decimal made the cut. But never got implemented in Interbase. Cheers, Ann ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Firebird-Devel mailing list, web interface at https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-devel
