Sort in Spanned Records



IBM's flagship sort product DFSORT for sorting, merging, copying, data manipulation and reporting. Includes ICETOOL and ICEGENER

Sort in Spanned Records

Postby steve-myers » Fri Aug 23, 2013 11:16 pm

In the recent Sort in VB topic there was talk about the flags in the second and third bytes of some variable length records that are spanned. Koluso can provide the definitive answer, but I believe the discussion was incorrect.

The flags as mentioned in the Sort in VB topic exist to allow data management to connect segments of a variable length record that exist in 2 or more physical records together into a complete record. Programmers that use QSAM and specify BFTEK=A in their DCB macro never see these flags; QSAM collects all the record segments into complete logical records. Assembler programmers that use BSAM to process data sets with spanned records will see the flags, but their programs should be connecting the segments into whole records.

Of course I have no idea about how sort processes data sets with spanned records, but I'm reasonably certain it will collect the segments into whole logical records as I just described for QSAM with BFTEK=A, and the spanned record flags for the first segment will be discarded, and that's what wil be sorted.
steve-myers
Global moderator
 
Posts: 2105
Joined: Thu Jun 03, 2010 6:21 pm
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 243 times

Re: Sort in Spanned Records

Postby skolusu » Sat Aug 24, 2013 5:26 am

steve-myers wrote:In the recent Sort in VB topic there was talk about the flags in the second and third bytes of some variable length records that are spanned. Koluso can provide the definitive answer, but I believe the discussion was incorrect.

The flags as mentioned in the Sort in VB topic exist to allow data management to connect segments of a variable length record that exist in 2 or more physical records together into a complete record. Programmers that use QSAM and specify BFTEK=A in their DCB macro never see these flags; QSAM collects all the record segments into complete logical records. Assembler programmers that use BSAM to process data sets with spanned records will see the flags, but their programs should be connecting the segments into whole records.

Of course I have no idea about how sort processes data sets with spanned records, but I'm reasonably certain it will collect the segments into whole logical records as I just described for QSAM with BFTEK=A, and the spanned record flags for the first segment will be discarded, and that's what wil be sorted.


steve-myers,

I am not sure as to what I need to provide the answer for. I may have missed the topic about Flags in VB sort topic. Can you provide me with a link? As for how DFSORT process spanned records, it depends on the OPTION SPANINC. Check this link which explains in detail about SPANINC

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ ... 1ca60/3.14?

SPANINC=RC0 option eliminates incomplete spanned record segments from the input data set. Basically it skips over any segments that don't comprise a complete record. DFSORT does NOT create incomplete spanned records.

P.S: The name is Kolusu and NOT koluso
Kolusu - DFSORT Development Team (IBM)
DFSORT is on the Web at:
www.ibm.com/storage/dfsort
skolusu
 
Posts: 586
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2008 10:38 pm
Has thanked: 0 time
Been thanked: 39 times

Re: Sort in Spanned Records

Postby steve-myers » Sat Aug 24, 2013 6:00 am

skolusu wrote:P.S: The name is Kolusu and NOT koluso
I don't really follow sort topics very much. It's been more than 5 years since I've used either DFSORT or the other major sort product. I just couldn't believe any sort product behaves as described in Sort in VB file. Most of my programming these last few months has been with VBS data - SMF records - so I have a nodding familiarity with VBS issues - and thought it might be a good idea to correct what appeared to be an error. As for the name; I thought I had typed in skolusu correctly, but I was typing from memory and missed the s and got the rest of it wrong, too.
steve-myers
Global moderator
 
Posts: 2105
Joined: Thu Jun 03, 2010 6:21 pm
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 243 times

Re: Sort in Spanned Records

Postby Akatsukami » Sat Aug 24, 2013 8:19 am

If I am wrong, then I am wrong, and will freely acknowledge it; the shock wore off a long time ago :)
"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!" -- what I say to a junior programmer at least once a day
User avatar
Akatsukami
Global moderator
 
Posts: 1058
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2010 2:31 am
Location: Bloomington, IL
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 51 times

Re: Sort in Spanned Records

Postby BillyBoyo » Sat Aug 24, 2013 5:04 pm

I think that this is the topic, dfsort-icetool-icegener/topic9351.html

I think there is a little confusion with an example showing x'0000nnnn' for the RDW, which should be x'nnnn0000'.

The question itself is a little obtuse. What happens when you SORT first on the RDW? Then the records are primarily in RDW order. For non-spanned records, that will be definitely record-length order. For spanned records, I'm not sufficiently interested to check (set up a test/read the manual) whether there is anything in the IOCS by the time SORT happens which would modify the behaviour.

If the previously-spanned-multiple-records are presnted to the SORT statement as one record (expected) I'd expect x'0000' in the low-order bytes of the RDW. If possible to read the constituent records individually, I'd expect the low-order two bytes to be non-zero.

I've only ever SORTed on the record-length to get data into record-length order for analysis of a file. If I wanted data also sorted withen equal record-lengths and the key happened to start at 5, I'd not consider clumping it all together, as it would hide my specific abnormal wishes. Normally I'd have no problem with clumping consecutive keys (although these days no real problem, I believe, in leaving them separate, it's an old habbit). It is just that the RDW is not "data" so I'm not going to confuse things by pretending it is "data".
BillyBoyo
Global moderator
 
Posts: 3804
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2011 12:02 am
Has thanked: 22 times
Been thanked: 265 times


Return to DFSORT/ICETOOL/ICEGENER

 


  • Related topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post