Hello --

I'm interested in finding an algorithm written in VB to convert IEEE
format doubles to IBM 370 format.  I've found a VB alogrithm on MSDN
that does the reverse, and C and FORTRAN alogrithms that do what I'm
looking for, but nothing that does IEEE to IBM 370 in VB.

While it is certainly possible to translate the C or FORTRAN
algorithms into VB or use a C/FORTRAN DLL, I'd like to avoid the
headaches if possible.  If anyone knows where I could find such an
algorithm, I'd very much appreciate it if you could point me in that
direction.

Thanks in advance.

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Request for Question Clarification by morris-ga on 05 Jun 2002 08:54 PDT

From StringX.com META Tag "EBCDIC to ASCII, ASCII to EBCDIC"

"Welcome to StringX.com, the web site for a DLL/Type Library that
gives Visual Basic many extra string handling functions, for those of
us that find this type of 'system utility' coding laborious or time
consuming.

These functions include, EBCDIC/ASCII conversions,"

http://www.stringx.com/

There is a free download (7 day trial) at

http://www.stringx.com/stxframe.htm

Unfortunately, I have no way of testing the program to see if it works
properly with floating point, though it would be strange if they left
that out.Please let me know if this does it.

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Clarification of Question by dbright-ga on 05 Jun 2002 12:37 PDT

Hi -- thanks for your response.

While there are several products that do this conversion, it would
require me to call the conversion function from a DLL or static
library which is what I'm trying to avoid.  I know that as a last
resort I can use a freely available algorithm written in C or FORTRAN
or 3rd party product to do this conversion, but I'd like to avoid the
overhead of using a DLL.

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Request for Question Clarification by xemion-ga on 05 Jun 2002 13:58 PDT

Would you mind posting the link to the MSDN article so we can review
that?  Thank you.

xemion-ga

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Clarification of Question by dbright-ga on 06 Jun 2002 06:13 PDT

The link dextron provided in the comments is the one I was referring to:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q235856

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Clarification of Question by dbright-ga on 06 Jun 2002 09:22 PDT

Hi fireband,  I am converting 8 byte IEEE to 8 byte IBM 370.  I agree
that it shouldn't be too difficult to knock out in VB, it's just that
I have more pressing issues at the moment, so I'm gladly willing to
spend $20 to outsource this piece.

I do have the ability to spot check the code if you were to write it. 
That is, I can do a IEEE -> IBM 370 -> IEEE round trip conversion and
compare the results (allowing for precision munging during the
conversion).

I'm dealing mainly with real life data, so and underflow or overflow
condition will be unlikely.  But in the event is happens, representing
an underflow as 0 and an overflow as the largest representable number
should be fine.  Thanks.

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Clarification of Question by dbright-ga on 06 Jun 2002 09:23 PDT

I, of course, meant "firebrand" :)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q235856 ?)

It shouldn't be too difficult to reverse the process described in the
MSDN article.  However, you didn't specify whether you are converting
the 8-byte IEEE to 8-byte IBM 370, or 4-byte to 4-byte, or some other
variation.

If someone were to write a VB function to do the conversion, do you
have a means of testing it?  Or were you counting on finding a
professionally developed, already tested version?  Also, what is the
desired behavior whenever overflow/underflow occurs?  It is not
immediately clear which of these conditions might need handling from
the article (I haven't done the math), but it should be taken into
account.