Record ordering property

Use the Record ordering property to specify the processing order of records from multiple input links.

Usage

You can set the Record ordering property to the values that are listed in the following table.

Table 1. Values of the Record ordering property
Value Description
All records All records are processed in a sequential order starting from the first link.
First record One record from each link is processed until all records from all links are processed.
Ordered Records are selected from the input links based on the order that you specify for the Key column, Column name, Sort order, Null order, and Case sensitive properties.

This example describes how the changes in Record ordering property values affect the order in which the records are processed by the stage. Assume that the Hive Connector stage has three input links, Link1, Link2 and Link3. Each of the links has two columns defined for it: C1 of VarChar(20) type and C2 of Date type.

Records arrive on these links in the following order:
Table 2. Example
Record number Link 1 Link 2 Link 3
1 Value 2, 2001-01-01 NULL, 2002-02-01 Value 3, 2003-03-01
2 NULL,2001-01-02 Value 2,2002-02-02 value 2,2003-03-02
3 Value 1,2001-01-03 Value 3,2002-02-03 Value 2,2003-03-03
4 Value 3,2001-01-04   Value 4,2003-03-04
Considering the following settings:
  • Record ordering is set to Ordered.
  • Column C1 is used as the key column for sorting.
  • Sort order is set to Ascending.
  • Null order is set to Before.
  • Case sensitive is set to No.
In this scenario, the connector sorts the records across the input links based on the sorting options that are specified. The records are processed in the order that is shown in the following table:
Table 3. Example
     
1 Link1 NULL,2001-01-02
2 Link2 NULL,2002-02-01
3 Link1 Value1,2001-01-03
4 Link1 Value2,2001-01-01
5 Link2 Value2,2002-02-02
6 Link3 Value2,2003-03-02
7 Link3 Value2,2003-03-03
8 Link1 Value3,2001-01-04
9 Link2 Value3,2002-02-03
10 Link3 Value3,2003-03-01
11 Link3 Value4,2003-03-04