HP RPG/iX Utilities Reference Manual (30318-90006)

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A discussion of the commands for SORT3 as compared to XSORT appears in appendix A.

Your MPE Commands Provide:

• Name of the program--XSORT.PUB.SYS

• Nameof the files you want to sort. The formal designatorfor a single-filesort is XSORTIN. For multiple-

file sorts, formal file designators are XSORTIN1 through XSORTIN9.

If XSORT can open the file XSORTIN, it assumes you want to do a single-filesort. If XSORTIN cannot

be opened, XSORT assumes you want to do a multiple-filesort, starting with XSORTIN1. (See "Use of

the MPE RESET Command" below for a description of how to avoid problems that may occur when run-

ning a multiple-file sort after a single-file sort.)

• Name of your output file. The formal designator is XSORTOUT.

• Name of the file containing specifications of the sort. The formal designator is XSORTEXT, which de-

faults to $STDIN.

Use of the MPE RESET Command:

To ensure that succeeding executions of XSORT use the correct ﬁles, it is recommended that you use MPE

RESET commands after each use of XSORT to reset all the MPE FILE equations issued for your input,

output, and text ﬁles.

For example, in a job stream:

.....

!FILE XSORTIN=TESTFILE

!FILE XSORTOUT=TESTFILE

!FILE XSORTEXT=TESTSPEC

!RUN XSORT.PUB.SYS

!RESET XSORTIN

!RESET XSORTOUT

!RESET XSORTEXT

....

Without the RESETs, the next sort could accidentally use the ﬁle TESTFILE for input (if the new sort is a

multiple-ﬁle sort, naming XSORTIN1 instead of XSORTIN) or TESTSPEC for the sort speciﬁcations (if an

overriding ﬁle equation for XSORTEXT is not issued).

Input Files

XSORT can input sequential MPE ﬁles, including ﬁles on non-disk devices such as tape. (Please see

Section 7 for the commands required.)

KSAM ﬁles may be input. Caution should be taken, however, because XSORT will skip deleted records. A

deleted record has its ﬁrst two bytes set to -1 (to hex "FFFF"). For Address-out sorts (SORTA), XSORT

reads KSAM ﬁles in chronological sequence and determines record numbers accordingly.

XSORT will normally assure that the ﬁrst record for a KSAM ﬁle is record number 0. If you wish to start

the Address-out numbering at 1, then you must supply the S Option spec with a "1" in column 7 or build

the KSAM ﬁle with the Firstrec=1 option. (See Section 4 for further information regarding S Option

speciﬁcation.)

NOTE XSORT will not process IMAGE data base files.

The formal designator for a single-ﬁle sort is XSORTIN. For multiple-ﬁle sorts, formal ﬁle designators are

XSORTIN1 through XSORTIN9. The multiple-ﬁle designators do not have to be continuous. You can skip

ﬁle numbers, selecting XSORTIN1, XSORTIN7, and XSORTIN3, for example. However, you must start