Re: What about big integers in Ada 2005?

[Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <cMv0f.454$ht7.77@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>, <adaworks@sbcglobal.net> writes:
> 
> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message
> news:1x4pe4pv41qsn$.m5c5jawjqcpq.dlg@40tude.net...
>> On Tue, 04 Oct 2005 05:24:17 GMT, adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:
>>
>>  I cannot imagine any
>> use of BCD except than to speed up conversions to ASCII, which is not an
>> issue in these days. > [decimal fixed point numbers is a different issue]
>>
> I replying to this part of your message separately.
> 
> BCD, and its cousins, including packed decimal, are used widely in the
> business data processing world.   Files are stored in these formats. At
> present, it is rather a nuisance to try to use Ada for reading these files.
> Not impossible, but not convenient either.

DEC Ada (83) stores fixed-point decimal data in BCD (VMS packed decimal).

I would presume that GNAT for VMS does the same, as compatibility with
existing programs was an important consideration when it was ported.