FastSort Manual

FastSort Manual—429834-003

5-1

Using FastSort System Procedures

This section describes the FastSort system library procedures. FastSort procedures

communicate between a user-written application process and a SORTPROG process.

The SORTPROG process runs independently of an application process and by default

resides in the $SYSTEM.SYSnn.SORTPROG program file.

For information about calling these procedures for serial sorting, see Section 4, Sorting

Programmatically. For information about calling these procedures for parallel sorting,

see Section 6, Sorting in Parallel. Both sections contain TAL and COBOL85 examples.

The table below describes the FastSort system library procedures in the order in which

you call them in an application.

In addition to the 350 words required by system procedure calls, the FastSort system

procedures require additional data stack space that is not automatically allocated by

the BINSERV process during compilation. Use the table below to determine the

amount of additional space you need to allocate for an application that calls FastSort

procedures:

Procedure Name Description

SORTBUILDPARM Specifies parameters for parallel sorting, record

blocking, and scratch volume structure.

SORTMERGESTART Begins the SORTPROG process and passes

parameters for a sort or merge run from the calling

process to SORTPROG.

SORTMERGESEND Sends input records from the calling process to the

SORTPROG process, one for each call.

SORTMERGERECEIVE Returns output records from the SORTPROG process to

the calling process, one for each call.

SORTERROR Provides the message text for the last FastSort error

code returned by a procedure.

SORTERRORDETAIL Provides the FastSort error code for the most recent

error and, if an input file caused the error, identifies the

input file.

SORTERRORSUM Provides all information that SORTERROR and

SORTERRORDETAIL provide and identifies the cause

of the most recent error if not an input file.

SORTMERGESTATISTIC

Reports information about a sort or merge run and ends

the run.

SORTMERGEFINISH Ends the sort or merge run and stops the SORTPROG

process.