FastSort Manual

FastSort Manual—429834-003
3-1
3 Using FastSort Commands
FastSort interactive commands are summarized below. This section describes these
commands in alphabetic order.
Command Description
ASCENDING Describes the location and attributes of one or more key fields that
determine an ascending sequence for output records.
CLEAR Deletes current command parameters for all commands or a specific
command.
COLLATE Specifies a file that contains an alternate collating sequence for comparing
key fields.
COLLATEOUT Stores an alternate collating sequence table in an unstructured file.
CPUS Specifies processors (CPUs) in which FastSort can run subsort
processes.
DESCENDING Describes the location and attributes of one or more key fields that
determine a descending sequence for output records.
EXIT Ends an interactive FastSort session (same as Ctrl-Y).
FC Displays the last FastSort command for editing and re-execution.
FROM Specifies the name of an input file for a sort or merge run and the
exclusion mode to use to open the file, the maximum number of records in
the file, the maximum length of records in the file, and whether the records
in the file are already sorted.
HELP Displays the syntax of a specific command or a list of all FastSort
commands with a description of each command.
NOTCPUS Specifies a group of processors (CPUs) that FastSort cannot use to run
subsort processes for parallel sorting.
RUN Starts a sort or merge run and optionally specifies the SORTPROG
process start parameters, the allocation of required disk space, and
whether duplicate records should be removed.
SAVE Saves FastSort command parameters from a sort or merge run to reuse in
subsequent runs.
SHOW Displays the command parameters currently in effect and whether they
are entered for the next sort or merge run or saved from a previous run.
SUBSORT Specifies the parameters for a SORTPROG subsort process for a parallel
sort or merge run.
TO Specifies an output file for a sort or merge run and parameters for the file
including the percentage of data slack and index slack, whether FastSort
should purge and recreate an existing output file, and the type of sort run
(record, permutation, or key sort).