COBOL Manual for TNS and TNS/R Programs

Procedure Division Verbs

HP COBOL Manual for TNS and TNS/R Programs—522555-006

9-227

SORT

SORT orders a set of records according to one or more keys. The records can either

be in a file or an input procedure can send them to SORT, one at a time. SORT can

either write the sorted records to a file or it can send them to an output procedure, one

at a time. SORT calls the FastSort utility.

sd-name

is the file name given in a sort-merge file description (SD) entry.

key-specifier

specifies one or more of the items described in the record descriptions of sd-

name.

key

is used to sort the records in ascending or descending order. The first key is

compared first, the second next, and so on. Two records equal in all sort keys

are sorted by their original order in the file.

SORT sd-name key-specifier

COLLATING SEQUENCE phrase

DUPLICATES phrase

input-specifier-1

input-specifier-2

output-specifier-1

output-specifier-2

VST213.vsd

ASCENDING

DESCENDING KEY

key

VST214.vsd