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:
“The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced—by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“This sort of thing may be tolerated by the French—but we are British, thank God.”
—Bernard Law, 1st Viscount Montgomery Of Alamein Montgomery (1887–1976)
“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)