Hello,
I’m Cobol programmer and had never worked with binary format B Adabas.
In practice that can save the fields in this format?
Binary format isn’t typically used in business applications. The only binary field I’ve ever stored in an Adabas file is the computer’s clock value, known in Natural as *TIMESTMP (B8).
would be the same as the timestamp that the databases (mysql, sqlserver)?
For example Logical fields in Natural (type L) are commonly stored as B-Format-Fields with 1 byte length in Adabas.
The major difference of A-Format fields to B-Format fields is:
Reset of a B-Format field results in 0x00.
Reset of a A-Format field results in 0x20.
(Also think of the Null-value-suppression flag of Adabas)
*TIMESTMP is a very special thing. It’s something like the CPU-Interal clock and has quite nothing to do with user readable timestamps (like T-Format-Fields in Natural).
HF is widely used option?
her explanation is long, which makes the HF in practice?
HF seems to be a very special thing which has to do with endianess.
To be honest:
I’ve rarely used B-Fields as unsigned integers. And even if I do, I won’t store them into an adabas-field with a descriptor.
The HF option is required, if you use Natural to access the files.
which files?
or file types?
The Adabas files with the fields with format B.