Using a Third-Party Sort Engine

By default, the server software tries to use an external, third-party engine for sorting. To use the correct sorting engine, complete the following steps:

1. If the third-party sort engine is not installed on the server computer, install it. IBM® Corp. does not provide the engines. You must purchase and license an engine from a third-party vendor.
2. Ensure the sort engine's library is on the system's execution or library path variable. On Windows, this is the PATH environment variable; on UNIX, this is LD_LIBRARY_PATH or LIBPATH, depending on the UNIX vendor. This step is required to allow the server software to load the third-party sort library.
3. Using the administration application (IBM SPSS® Statistics Administration Console, which is installed as part of IBM SPSS Deployment Manager), set the Sort option to the appropriate third-party engine. See the topic Users in the Deployment Manager User's Guide (included in the help for IBM SPSS Collaboration and Deployment Services) for more information.

Any procedures that require sorting (e.g., SORT) will subsequently use the third-party sorting engine. Issuing the SET SORT=INTERNAL syntax command forces the server software to use the internal algorithm for sorting. An end user can also explicitly specify third-party sorting by issuing the SET SORT=EXTERNAL command. However, this is not necessary because third-party sorting is the default.

Checking the Current Sort Option

To check which sorting option is being used, you can issue the SET MESSAGES ON syntax command and run a SORT job. You can also use the SHOW SORT syntax command.