SORT-MERGE/XL General User's Guide (32650-90883)

86 Chapter6
SORT-MERGE/XL Commands
KEY
PARAMETERS
NOTE NANs (Not A Number) will collate at the beginning or end for IEEE
floating-point numbers. The method of reporting (or ignoring) these entities
has not been determined.
keyspec A group of parameters used to specify a key data item to be sorted or
merged. The syntax of the keyspec parameters follows:
position, length [, type ][,DESC]
position A positive number (integer) specifying the position of the first character of
the key data item within the record. (The first position of a record line is
numbered one.)
length A positive number (integer) indicating the length of the data item key field
in bytes.
type Defines the type of data contained in the data item key field. The type of
data can be one of the following:
B[YTE] A direct byte comparison is used. It is the default value for the type
parameter and should be used for ASCII or EBCDIC data. The
specification of an alternate collating sequence via the >DATA and
>ALTSEQ commands affects the collating of this key type only.
C[HARACTER] The collating sequence for the native language defined in the >LANGUAGE
command is used. If no >LANGUAGE command has been issued, SORT/XL
and MERGE/XL use the default data language of the system (usually
ASCII). Refer to the Native Language Programmer's Guide for additional
information on the default data language.
I[NTEGER] The key data item field contains a two's complement number of the
specified length in bytes. Any value may be specified for length . The
length parameter defaults to two bytes.
R[EAL] The key data item field contains a floating-point number in standard HP
3000 format. Any value may be entered for length . The length
parameter defaults to four bytes.
L[ONG] LONG is the same as REAL except that length defaults to eight bytes.
F[POINT] The key data item field contains a floating-point number in IEEE
standard format. The length parameter defaults to four bytes. Any value
may be entered for length .
F8[POINT] Same as FPOINT except that length defaults to eight bytes.
F16[POINT] Same as FPOINT except that length defaults to sixteen bytes.
T[WO-BYTE] Key data item field contains 16-bit data. The length specified for this
key type must be an even number of bytes.