The main ways of holding numeric data are binary and packed decimal. If these types of data are held differently in two CICS® systems, resource definitions in each system may be sufficient to cause automatic data conversion.
In some cases, you can arrange for one system to hold data in a way that
is compatible with the other, avoiding the need for conversion. For example,
if a CICS Transaction Server for Windows COBOL/2
application program
is compiled with the IBMCOMP and SIGN EBCDIC directives, packed decimal data
is held in System/390®-compatible format.
Automatic data conversion is not available in some cases. For example, conversion between workstation packed decimal data and System/390 packed decimal data requires user-written conversion code. This code can be inserted in a user-replaceable conversion program in the CICS on System/390 product.
See the platform-specific CICS intercommunication guides for a detailed explanation of which CICS system is responsible for converting the data when two systems are exchanging data.