Need some python help (or maybe C )

[Bill Campbell]

On Sat, Dec 13, 2008, Ben Duncan wrote:
>
> I have a hex value as x'000123456D". It is a COMP-3 (Binary coded decimal)
> for a cobol program. That says to me and is in actuality the number 123456-,
> The LAST nibble D is negative and F or C would be postive.
>
> I need to get this to a "integer" or a string.

I would use the python struct module to break out the invidiual digits
(Burroughs speak for the cutesy nibbles of IBM :-) of this.  It will take a
bit of fiddling to split the bytes into digits.  Split it into bytes, the
AND out the left and right halves of the byte, something like:

leftmask = 0xF0
rightmask = 0x0F
leftdigit = (byte & leftmask) >> 4
rightdigit = byte & rightmask

Bill
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