IBM Mainframe Forum

Hi All,

I am sure that this question might have been asked before somewhere. I tried to search the forum but couldnt get any direct answer.
So Here I am, Posting this in a new thread.

Lets say I have a VB file as below:


Basically there is a fixed 6 digit key at the end of each VB record.

1) How do I write a SORTCARD which gets me only the fixed 6 digit key?
2) I know that the first 4 bytes are RDW on a VB file which have the length each record. Is it possible to use this in a Sortcard?
3) Lets say Hypothetically that in columns between 7 and 8 I have the starting column of the key; e.g 14 in the first record. Is it possible to use this in a Sortcard to get the 6 digit key?

I am sorry if this sounds stupid, But in my current organisation I dont get to work on DFSORT often and hence my prior knowledge is a little hazy.
Would appreciate pointers, even if there is no direct answer.

Thanks,
Rajesh

DFSORT does not have any built-in functions for calculating a position from a field, but you can use a series of IFTHEN clauses to do what you want like this (note that your starting column does NOT include the 4-byte RDW, so we have to add 4, e.g. 14 = 14 + 4 = 18).



Alternatively, if you use the pattern of the data (nonnumeric, numeric starting in position 13) instead of the column value, you can use DFSORT's PARSE function like this: