FastSort Manual

FastSort Manual—429834-003
1-1
1 Introduction to FastSort
FastSort is the sort-merge tool for HP NonStop systems. FastSort can sort or merge
records in one of two modes:

A serial operation uses one SORTPROG process in one processor with up to 32
individual scratch files or a single partitioned scratch file.

A parallel operation distributes the sort or merge workload across multiple
SORTPROG processes, processors, and scratch files.
Sort and Merge Operations
A sort operation arranges and combines one or more sets of input records into a
single set of output records. During a sort operation, FastSort arranges the records in
either ascending or descending order, or in a combination of both based on a
sequence of key-field values.
A merge operation combines two or more sets of sorted input records into a single set
of output records. The records for merging are already sorted in an ascending or
descending sequence of key-field values.
FastSort accepts records to sort or merge from these sources:

1 to 32 disk files

A terminal

An application process

Tape files
You use FastSort interactive commands or system procedures to define the sort or
merge operation. In each sort or merge run, FastSort performs one of the following
operations:

Sorts one set of input records and produces one set of output records

Merges two or more sets of sorted records into one set of output records

Sorts two or more sets of input records and merges them into one set of output
records

Sorts one or more sets of input records and merges them with one or more sets of
sorted input records into one set of output records
Figure 1-1
on page 1-2 shows these four FastSort operations.
After sorting and merging all the input records, FastSort returns the output records to
your application process or writes them to a file or a terminal. You can also have
FastSort return output records that are sequence numbers or key-field values, or both,
instead of entire records.