Have a file consist records in variable Block length

lakshmibala · New User Joined: 16 Jun 2004 Posts: 47

Hi

This question asked in IBM

Have a file consist records in variable Block length one is 80,40,30,50...like that. i wanna sorted order thru their size. How to sort?

mmwife · Super Moderator Joined: 30 May 2003 Posts: 1504

If you want to sort by BLOCK size, define the file as RECFM=U and define the sort key as the BDW (i.e. the 1st 4 bytes in the block).

I don't think you can sort by the RDW (rec descriptor word) because the 1st rec of each block looks like:

BDW|RDW|data

and the other recs in each block look like:

RDW|data

So, the sort key you need changes position in the 1st rec of each block.

anuradha · Global Moderator Joined: 06 Jan 2004 Posts: 257

Hi Jack,

You rightly added a statement in your signature that too at right place. Now a days we are seeing many questions which are half informative.

Thanks,
Anu