Performance Considerations for Date-Time Relational Conditions

When a date-time item is or compared to another date-time item in ILE COBOL, it is first stripped of all separators and converted to ISO format (no separators). The two date-time items are then compared, digit by digit. In the case of a date to date comparison, both dates are converted to @Y%m%d and then compared. Times would be converted to 8/1/07M%S, and then compared. This means that to get the best performance for date-time compares, date-time items should be in ISO format.