G.3.1 External Floating-Point Data Type

External floating-point (EFP) is a machine-independent floating-point data type defined with a PICTURE phrase. An EFP item is a numeric item. It is not an edited numeric item.

EFP items in ACUCOBOL-GT can be written to, and read from, data files, and they can be converted to and from other numeric data types.

An EFP item may be used anywhere a floating-point item may be used. When it is used in a DISPLAY statement, the assumed decimal point is shown, but no other editing is performed.

Note: Mixed-type operations are not well-defined in COBOL. Therefore, it is not advisable to mix internal floating-point (FLOAT or DOUBLE), external floating-point, and fixed-point numeric operands, except in simple MOVE statements.

EFP operations are always rounded off, even if the ROUNDED option is not used.

No USAGE, SIGN, SYNCHRONZED, JUSTIFIED or VALUE clause may be used with an EFP item.