DFSORT vs SYNCSORT SORTWK Usage

yogeshpawar · New User Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 37 Location: Sussex-UK

Does DFSORT require more SORTWK* files to be allocated for sorting compare to SYNCSORT?

Many of our jobs failed after installing DFSORT which were running fine with SYNCSORT with the error message for eg.
'ICE046A 0 SORT CAPACITY EXCEEDED - RECORD COUNT 8074498'

When we allocated more SORTWK* files or increased SPACE= (CYL, ( )) parameter it worked.

CICS Guy · Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 7:49 pm

Have you considered omiting the work DDs and letting sort allocate dynamically?

yogeshpawar · New User Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 37 Location: Sussex-UK

Not yet. This is what we are planning to do now.

But in general I wanted to know whether DFSORT uses more SYSWK than SYNCSORT or is this something installation specific?

Dave Betten · New User Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 26

I generally have not seen where DFSORT uses more sortwork than other sort products but the way in which we allocate the sortwork varies. Also, the amount of processor storage we use could impact the amount of DASD work space required. If you'd like to send me a couple of sysouts from the failed sorts, I can take a look to try and understand what's going on.

Dave Betten
DFSORT Development Performance Lead
betten@us.ibm.com

yogeshpawar · New User Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 37 Location: Sussex-UK

Following are the SYSOUT messages from job, which failed due to SORTWK*

ICE084I 0 EXCP ACCESS METHOD USED FOR SORTOUT
ICE084I 0 EXCP ACCESS METHOD USED FOR SORTIN
ICE750I 0 DC 1002355200 TC 0 CS DSVUU KSZ 28 VSZ 28
ICE752I 0 FSZ=2784320 RC IGN=0 E AVG=364 0 WSP=1316352 C DYN=0 0
ICE046A 0 SORT CAPACITY EXCEEDED - RECORD COUNT 1171863
ICE751I 1 DE-K90000 D5-K05352 E8-K90000
ICE052I 0 END OF DFSORT

The existing code was as follows which was working fine with SYNCSORT

//SORTWK01 DD UNIT=(,5),SPACE=(CYL,(10,10))
//SORTWK02 DD UNIT=(,5),SPACE=(CYL,(10,10))
//SORTWK03 DD UNIT=(,5),SPACE=(CYL,(10,10))

Above failed when DFSORT was installed. When we changed to the code to :

//SORTWK01 DD UNIT=(,5),SPACE=(CYL,(100,100))
//SORTWK02 DD UNIT=(,5),SPACE=(CYL,(100,100))
//SORTWK03 DD UNIT=(,5),SPACE=(CYL,(100,100))

it worked fine. The figure (CYL, (100,100)) was coded on trial and error basis where initially I was increasing CYL by 10 i.e. 20,30, 40 but then I directly coded 100

I have one more query regarding this.

In case of DFSORT can we have SORTWK* to be picked up from JCL and if not enough then allocate dynamically? (so that we don’t have to worry much about SORTWK* coded in DD statements)
If yes then how can it be achieved?

Dave Betten · New User Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 26

It's either JCL sortworks or dynamic allocation. There's no means of using JCL sortworks and then switching to dynamic if they're not enough.

I can try to help you more if you send me (betten@us.ibm.com) the following information offline:

In your successful DFSORT job can you tell me the following:

In message ICE165I what are the tracks allocated and tracks used values?

Do messages ICE199I, ICE180I or ICE188I indicate whether DFSORT used memory object, Hiperspace or Dataspace?

What values are in the ICE093I and ICE156I messages which show main storage for the sort?

If you can send your last successful Syncsort sysout and your unsuccessful and successful DFSORT sysouts to betten@us.ibm.com, maybe I can determine if there's something in your DFSORT parameters that's causing us to need more sortwork space.

Dave Betten

yogeshpawar · New User Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 37 Location: Sussex-UK

Hi Dave,

I have sent the details.

Alissa Margulies · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:51 pm

yogeshpawar · New User Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 37 Location: Sussex-UK

Thanks Dave for your suggestions.