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DCL, extended precision, and floating point?

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The Question is:

 
According to DCL Help, symbol data types available are basically just string
 and integer.
Is there any way to use a longword or double type in order to calculate numbers
 that are greater than 2x32.
 
Do I need to code my own program to do the calculations and output the numbers.
 
And is there any way to represent floating point with DCL?

The Answer is :

 
  DCL supports longword integers and strings.  Longwords are 32 bits.
  There is no DCL-provided mechanism to calculate with non-integer
  values, nor with values that exceed a longword.
 
  You will want to code your own program, as DCL is not particularly
  suited to this task.  In theory, you could code DCL routines to
  provide multiple-precision arithmetic, but the results would be
  neither pretty nor speedy.
 
  DCL is appropriate for file and string manipulations, but if you want
  to do numbers, please use a compiler or a calculator -- freeware or
  shareware executable images that provide for calculations from within
  DCL procedures have been referenced in newsgroups in the past.
 

  
     
     answer written or last revised on ( 29-NOV-2000 )
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