The text read off it
[page 42]
The MOVE Command
The MOVE command calls for the movement of data from one area of storage to one or more other areas. Concurrent editing will occur automatically in certain cases depending on the format of the data as defined in the data description. The general form of the MOVE command is:
MOVE data.name.1 TO data.name.2, data.name.3, ... data.name.n
The data specified by "data.name.1" is moved to the area of storage designated by "data.name.2" and to any other area(s) mentioned in the command (data.name.3, . . . data.name.n). As used in this command "data.name" may represent data at any level defined in the data description (see Chapter 4).
The following rules must be observed in writing MOVE commands:
- Information from numeric fields may be moved to other numeric fields, to alphameric fields, and to report fields.
- Information from alphabetic or alphameric fields may be moved only to other alphabetic or alphameric fields.
Some examples of the MOVE command are:
MOVE CURRENT.DATE TO CHECK.DATE.
MOVE ZEROS TO MONTH.TOTAL, YEAR.TOTAL, CUMUL.TOTAL.
EDITING FEATURE
Editing of the data in the sending area to conform to the format of the receiving area is a feature of the MOVE command. Such editing occurs automatically if an explicit format definition, i.e., a field pictorial, is given in the data description for both the "from" and the "to" areas. (The field pictorial is a convenient method of describing formats and is discussed in detail in the data description portion of the manual; see page 79.)
The following conventions are observed in the editing feature of the MOVE command:
Numeric Information
The data from the sending area is aligned with respect to the decimal point (assumed or actual) in the receiving area. Such alignment may involve the dropping of leading digits or low-order digits (or both if the sending field is larger than the receiving one). If the "from" area is smaller than the "to" area, the excess positions of the receiving area will be replaced by zeros.
Alphameric Information
If the sending area is larger than the receiving area, the data being moved will be left-justified and truncated; i.e., low-order characters will be dropped as may be necessary to make the data fit into the receiving area. If the sending area is the smaller, the data will be left-justified in its new location. The low-order positions of the receiving area, i.e., the excess positions, will be filled with blanks.
A few examples are included below to clarify the editing feature. Regarding the pictorials shown in each case, for the purposes of these examples it is sufficient to know that the digit 9 represents any digit, the character A any non-numeric character , the character X any character, and that V shows the position of the assumed decimal point.