IBM Mainframe Forum

Hi Billy,

Can you just explain the OUTLEN code phrase for me? that would do, rest i get it myself

Yes.

It is not OUTLEN, it is IFOUTLEN. It is not an IF of any type.

SORT will try to keep try of output lenghts in IFTHENs that have been adjusted by BUILD/OVERLAY. However, sometimes you need to tell SORT the output length from IFTHENs. And sometimes, our case, it is just the easiest way to adjust the record-length, where we want to cut the output record down from 161 bytes (on the REFORMAT record) to, in our case, 80 bytes for output.

If you read IFOUTLEN=80 as "set-the-record-length-for-the-ouptut-to-80" then you've got it.

And remember to explain the rest to us once you understand it. It is a way to learn. Better is to attempt it yourself first, which you will do next time..

Another way of getting the desired results is to simply concatenate both files to sortin as they have same DCB properties and validate the indicator