IBM Mainframe Forum

Hello all,

Let us have the following control statement :



I'd like to know if is is possible to do this sort altering the collating sequence ONLY for some of the positions of the file. These positions are : 36,4,CH,A,33,2,CH,A,30,2,CH,A.

What I need is to do the sort in such a way that character SPACES X'40' is higher than any other alphanumeric character only for fields 36,4,CH,A,33,2,CH,A,30,2,CH,A.

Example :

Input Sample File is :



Output file now I have is :



What I need is :


Code'd

Locate Altering EBCDIC Collating Sequence—Examples in the DFSORT Application Programming Guide and look at Example 1

The character $ (X'5B') is to collate at position X'EA', that is, after uppercase Z
(X'E9').

You should easily be able to arrange what you want from that.

You show your output in the same order as the input. Do you really need to SORT anyway?

Thanks for your quick reply.

Yes I do need to SORT; the file excerpts were only shown to make someone understand the problem I'm facing.

I've also consulted DFSORT Application Programming Guiide; and example 1 does not suit my needs; the question I'm posing is altering the collating sequence for ONLY SOME of the SORT arguments without affecting the others.

Is this possible?.

Humour me, and try it before dismissing it. Change only the fields you want affected from CH to AQ.

Hello again, I've tried changing field from CH to AQ and it does not work¡¡¡. As with EBCBIC, in ASCII a blank is lower than any alphanumeric character¡¡; I need the other way round.

Show the code you have tried please. ASCII has nothing directly to do with anything I've mentioned.

The SYSIN I've tried is as follows :

SORT FIELDS=(1,10,CH,A,26,4,CH,A,23,2,CH,A,20,2,CH,A,
36,4,AQ,A,33,2,AQ,A,30,2,AQ,A,
11,2,CH,A,13,2,CH,A,40,1,CH,A)
OPTION DYNALLOC

Note I've changed the affected fields treatment from CH to AQ.

Well, since you neglected -- against Mr. Boyo's explicit recommendation -- to specify ALTSEQ, your failure isn't surprising.

Yes, the example included the ALTSEQ, and the description tells you want it does.



That should sort space (X'40') as higher than the number nine (X'F9') which is what you want, yes? It will only affect fields defined as AQ, you your CH fields are unaffected. Look at OPTION CHALT while you are at it, if you wanted to affect all SORT/MERGE fields without changing from CH.

Thanks to BillyBoyo I've solved this issue.

The DFSORT SYSIN is as follows :

SORT FIELDS=(1,10,CH,A,26,4,CH,A,23,2,CH,A,20,2,CH,A,
36,4,AQ,A,33,2,AQ,A,30,2,AQ,A,
11,2,CH,A,13,2,CH,A,40,1,CH,A)
ALTSEQ CODE=(40F9)
OPTION NOCHALT DYNALLOC

Use NOCHALT option to override standard installation defaults in case these were set to CHALT=Y.