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From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: What about big integers in Ada 2005?
Date: 4 Oct 2005 09:59:48 -0500
Organization: LJK Software
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Date: 2005-10-04T09:59:48-05:00
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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.