David,
Thanks for your input. First, these are prices, so no negatives will be
involved, and second, stupid me tried your approach but as an addition, not
multiplication! Ah, the light is so blinding! Yikes! I will give it a
shot. And I understand the formatting issue and where it should happen.

Again, many thanks.

"David McRitchie" wrote:

You are not thinking in terms of what is needed. When you supply
the numbers they will be in the specific format required any rounding
if needed will be done on your side beforehand. What is wanted
is the number with a an assumed two decimals places. So you
multiply by 100 and format without any formatting characters on your side.
Everything should be in a specific position, because I doubt that COBOL
is going to handle CSV files unless the COBOL is on a PC.

"E2engine" wrote ...
Thanks for your response. What you are suggesting would mean that the number
would first need to be formatted as text and then searched and replaced for
the period.