Setting sort or merge criteria
To set sort or merge criteria, define the keys on which the operation is to be performed.
About this task
Do these steps:
Procedure
Results
SORT
and MERGE
keys
can be of class alphabetic, alphanumeric, national (if
the compiler option NCOLLSEQ(BIN)
is in effect),
or numeric (but not numeric of USAGE NATIONAL
). If
it has USAGE NATIONAL
, a key can be of category national
or can be a national-edited or numeric-edited data item. A key cannot
be a national decimal data item or a national floating-point data
item.
The
collation order for national keys is determined by the binary order
of the keys. If you specify a national data item as a key, any COLLATING
SEQUENCE
phrase in the SORT
or MERGE
statement
does not apply to that key.
You can mix SORT
and MERGE
statements
in the same COBOL program. A program can perform any number of sort
or merge operations. However, one operation must end before another
can begin.
NCOLLSEQ
SORT statement (COBOL for Linux® on x86 Language Reference)
MERGE statement (COBOL for Linux on x86 Language Reference)