Sorting by multiple fields

You can further sort the records in the bookstore data set by specifying multiple control fields. When you specify two or more control fields, you specify them in the order of greater to lesser priority. Note that control fields might overlap or be contained within other control fields.

Table 1 shows how the records would be sorted if you specified the following control fields in the order they are listed:

Course department
Course number
Instructor's last name
Instructor's initials
Book title.

So, if two records have the same department, they are sorted by course number. If they also have the same course number, they are sorted by instructor's last name. If they also have the same last name, they are sorted by initials. Finally, if they also have the same initials, they are sorted by title.

Specify the location, length, data format, and order for each of the control fields, as follows:

Specifying the location, length, data format, and order for each of the control fields

The records are sorted as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Sample Bookstore Data Set Sorted by Multiple Fields
Book Title	Course Department	Course Number	Instructor's Last Name	Instructor's Initials
1 75	110 114	115 119	145 159	160 161
LIVING WELL ON A SMALL BUDGET PICK'S POCKET DICTIONARY INTRODUCTION TO BIOLOGY STRATEGIC MARKETING SUPPLYING THE DEMAND NUMBERING SYSTEMS COMPUTER LANGUAGES COMPUTERS: AN INTRODUCTION SYSTEM PROGRAMMING VIDEO GAME DESIGN SHORT STORIES AND TALL TALES EDITING SOFTWARE MANUALS THE COMPLETE PROOFREADER INKLINGS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF YOUNG POETS MODERN ANTHOLOGY OF WOMEN POETS THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION CRISES OF THE MIDDLE AGES EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY ADVANCED TOPICS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS	BIOL BUSIN BUSIN COMP COMP COMP COMP COMP ENGL ENGL ENGL ENGL ENGL HIST HIST HIST PSYCH PSYCH	80521 70124 70251 00032 00032 00032 00103 00205 10054 10347 10347 10856 10856 50420 50521 50632 30016 30975	GREENBERG LORCH MAXWELL CHATTERJEE CHATTERJEE CHATTERJEE SMITH NEUMANN BUCK MADRID MADRID FRIEDMAN FRIEDMAN GOODGOLD WILLERTON BISCARDI ZABOSKI NAKATSU	HC HH RF AN CL CL DC LB GR MM MM KR KR ST DW HR RL FL

You can often shorten the length of control statements. You can specify fields together whenever they are next to each other in the record and have the same data format and order. You can shorten this last statement by specifying the department and course number together as one field, and the instructor's last name and initials together as one field.

Shortening this last statement by specifying the department and course number together as one field, and the instructor's last name and initials together as one field

Also, if all of the control fields have the same data format, you can specify the data format just once, using the FORMAT=f parameter. For example:

 SORT FORMAT=CH,FIELDS=(110,10,A,145,17,A,1,75,A)

If some of the control fields have the same data format, but others don't, you can specify the FORMAT=f parameter along with the individual data formats. For example:

 SORT FORMAT=CH,FIELDS=(110,10,A,170,4,BI,D,145,17,A,1,75,A)

is equivalent to:

 SORT FIELDS=(110,10,CH,A,170,4,BI,D,145,17,CH,A,1,75,CH,A)

example : Sorting UTF16 data and Character data

SORT FIELDS=(5,4,FI,A,345,400,UTF16,D,13,2,CH,A)