Processing Packed Numbers

Processing Packed Numbers

If the program attribute Fixed point arithmetic is not set, type P fields are interpreted as integers without decimal places. The DECIMALS parameter of the DATA statement only affects the format of the WRITE output.

For this reason, SAP recommends that you always set the program attribute Fixed point arithmetic when working with type P fields (see Maintaingin Program Attributes).

Then, the keyword DECIMALS refers not only to the position of the decimal point when you output a type P field to the output list, but also takes into account the decimal places in arithmetic operations.

In the case of intermediate results, ABAP calculates up to 31 places (before and after the decimal point). If Fixed point arithmetic is set, calculations with packed numbers in ABAP work in the same way as in pocket calculators.

DATA: P TYPE P.
P = 1 / 3 * 3.
WRITE P.

If the program attribute Fixed point arithmetic is set, the result is 0 because the result of the division is rounded internally to 0.

If the program attribute Fixed point arithmetic is set, the result is 1 because the result of the division is stored internally as 0.333333333333333333333333333333 with an accuracy of up to 31 digits.