Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 7129 Location: San Jose, CA
Corrections to some of the statements made in this thread:
It was implied that FINDREP can be used with INREC, but not with OUTREC. Actually, DFSORT's new FINDREP function can be used with the INREC, OUTREC and OUTFIL statements. IFTHEN FINDREP is also supported on all three statements.
Quote:
SYNCTOOL is the equivalent of ICETOOL for SYNCSORT
.
ICETOOL is a fully documented feature of DFSORT. SYNCTOOL is not documented. Syncsort's SYNCTOOL is NOT equivalent to DFSORT's ICETOOL. DFSORT's ICETOOL has functions that are NOT available with Syncsort's SYNCTOOL.
Quote:
DFSORT ( by IBM ) installs as:
ICEMAN ( with aliases SORT AND DFSORT )
ICETOOL
DFSORT does not ship "DFSORT" as an alias. It does ship "SORT" as an alias.
Quote:
many shops create aliases
SORT and ICEMAN for SYNCSORT
ICETOOL for SYNTOOL
AFAIK, Syncsort ships these aliases itself. Some shops that migrate from Syncsort to DFSORT do create "SYNCSORT" as an alias for "ICEMAN" since DFSORT does not ship "SYNCSORT" as an alias.
Quote:
I think that ICETOOL doesn't do anything that you couldn't do via coding multiple DFSORT steps -- it just makes coding them a bit easier.
This is a ridiculous statement. "A bit easier"? Try a whole lot easier. Even if you could do "anything" ICETOOL does with just sort steps (unlikely unless you're talking about writing your own E15 or E35 exit with the required logic), you would have to spend a great deal of time figuring out how to do it and it would take several passes in many cases and be less efficient. DFSORT's ICETOOL performs a whole host of functions that are significantly easier to do with ICETOOL then with just sort steps. Why not just say that DFSORT's ICETOOL can't do anything a COBOL program can't do (that at least would be true although it would ignore the fact that people would rather NOT write their own code to do things that they can do with a utility).
I don't understand why anyone would "belittle" the usefulness of DFSORT's ICETOOL or say that it just makes things "a bit easier". There's no question that DFSORT's ICETOOL has become a very important tool for many, many customers and made their jobs easier. I've added new functions to it frequently to allow it to do more and more since I first introduced it in 1991. Just look at the z/OS DFSORT V1R5 PTF UK90013 material to see the significant new functions I just added to DFSORT's ICETOOL including DATASORT, SUBSET, WITHANY, BCOUNT, FIRST(n), FIRSTDUP(n), WRITE(countdd), and so on.
