The System Sort Utility
SORT has one to eight input files, which may be of any valid record length. It has one output file, of any stated length, which may contain from zero to 8 million-plus records.
A sort can contain entire records or just 3-byte addresses which point to records in an associated file. This was called an address-out file or ADDROUT. When using an Addrout, the program read in these 3-byte addresses and then fetched associated records from the master file.
A programmer who wanted the benefits of a System/38-style logical file would use an Addrout with a RETAIN-S disposition:
// LOAD MYPROG
// FILE NAME-ADDROUT,LABEL-WS.SORT,RETAIN-S
// RUN
After the program finishes, the Addrout file doesn't exist anymore. It has been "scratched," or set to RETAIN-S, meaning the system auto-deletes it.
Read more about this topic: IBM System/34, SORT
Famous quotes containing the words system, sort and/or utility:
“For the universe has three children, born at one time, which reappear, under different names, in every system of thought, whether they be called cause, operation, and effect; or, more poetically, Jove, Pluto, Neptune; or, theologically, the Father, the Spirit, and the Son; but which we will call here, the Knower, the Doer, and the Sayer. These stand respectively for the love of truth, for the love of good, and for the love of beauty.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, with hope & love, & go as brave as the zodiack. In age we put out another sort of perspiration; gout, fever, rheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and avarice.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Moral sensibilities are nowadays at such cross-purposes that to one man a morality is proved by its utility, while to another its utility refutes it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)