Re: How to sort a flat text file on the 400.

Try the good old sort program from those /3x days. (No! It was AFTER the second 
world war when companies used the sort facilities in System/3x and System/38.) 
It is extreme fast and you can do the same things, you do usually in logical 
files (e.g. iclude/exclude/group/build sum records etc.)

The command is FMTDTA. It reads so called sort-specs, where you define what 
colums of the flat file to be sorted and wether it is ascending or descending. 
The sort specs have to be in a source-file member. The sort-specs have a fixed 
format. here is an example.
--------------sort specs--------this is the content of your source 
member-----------
HSORTR     7A        3X  64       (Header spec: the sum of all sort fields 
-here we have only one sort field- is 7) (2-8)
     FNC   2   8                       Sort columns 2 to 8
     FDC   1  64                       RECORD   (we sort a record with record 
legth 64)
--------------end of sort 
specs---------------------------------------------------------

And YES! If you use SEU, you have a prompter for this type of records (choose 
type SRT38 if you start SEU with a new member)

Here is the sort-command

 FMTDTA INFILE((YourFlat_Input_File))
        OUTFILE(YourFlat_Output_File)
        SRCFILE(A_Common_Source_File_e.g.QCLSRC)
        SRCMBR(here_you_specify_your_sort_specs)

Yes it is really VERY old. But it still works. And for a sort of a flat file 
there is no faster method which I know.

Detlef Fallisch
F+F Consulting / Germany

"McGivern, Tom" schrieb:

> Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>
> I have a rexx script that parses some data.. And generates some output.
> This run in batch generates a qprint file.
>
> I've been doing a CPYSPLF to copy the file to a test library, and then
> download it to a unix system, where I can sort the darn thing, and
> continue with a rexx script on unix.
>
> I'd like to keep the whole thing on the 400, so I can schedule it to run
> regularly.
>
> I guess I'd like to get the data into a database file where I can then
> SELECT with an ORDER BY clause.
>
> Any suggestions on getting the following looking data into a database?
> "R12345","10/30/2003","10:20:15", etc.. (comma separated values format).
> "R12346","10/30/2003",".....
>
> Thanks..
>
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