Selecting 5 records using "INCLUDE="

Jeffrey Ranney · New User Joined: 23 Dec 2010 Posts: 20 Location: USA

I want to copy some records from production for a test file to use with a COBOL program change.
I am using the following cards :

SORT FIELDS=COPY
OPTION VLSCMP
OUTFIL INCLUDE=(36,1,CH,EQ,C'J',OR,
36,1,CH,EQ,C'H',OR,
36,1,CH,EQ,C'I',OR,
36,1,CH,EQ,C'K',OR,
36,1,CH,EQ,C'L')

Rather than choosing all 10,000 records which match this criterion, I would like to choose only 5 records from each criterion.

If this is even possible,
What would the cards look like to choose 5 "J"s, 5 "H"'s ..etc... ?

Frank Yaeger · Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 7:18 am

Yes, it is possible but I need more information.

What is the RECFM and LRECL of your input file.

Are the input records already sorted by position 36, or not?

Do you have input records with other values in position 36 besides HIJKL?

Jeffrey Ranney · New User Joined: 23 Dec 2010 Posts: 20 Location: USA

Thank you Frank !!
The DCB is RECFM=VB, LRECL=547. The shortest record is 9.
The file is sorted @ 1 for a length of 9
There are more values in column 36 other than HIJKL, however, I only want HIJKL as the change to my program affects only these records.

Frank Yaeger · Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 11:11 pm

Here's a DFSORT job that will do what you asked for. I assumed "position 36" includes the RDW. If not, you'll need to use 40 instead of 36.

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 3:13 pm

dick scherrer · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:33 pm

We don' need no steenkin' regression test . . .

Frank Yaeger · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 10:49 pm

Dick,

I'm not sure what your point is.

I assumed only the HIJKL records were wanted for output.

I did include other record types in the input file for MY testing to assure they were not included for output.

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 11:43 pm

Dick**2 points were not sort related,
they were simply related to the testing methodology...

process changed for some record types...
the TS wants to extract samples to test the changes only!

the suggestion was to process also other record types to test for <broken> things

Frank Yaeger · Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 1:15 am

Well, not having the full picture of what the OP is trying to do, I wouldn't make that assumption, but ...

Jeffrey Ranney · New User Joined: 23 Dec 2010 Posts: 20 Location: USA

Sweeeeeeet wine !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you again, Frank... EXACTLY what the doctor ordered !!

Thanks all for the additional comments regarding testing and such, but for now, my Alpha testing is testing only the record 'types' which the code immediately affects.

I needed the SORT syntax to strip off only a count of records and Frank came through,... as always !!!

Thanks again ALL !!