Leaving the VAX Sort/Merge Utility? See CoSort's Familiar SortCL Syntax for Unix and Windows.

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DEC VAX (VMS) Sort Migration

CoSort's Very Familiar Syntax for VMS Sort Users

Challenge:

You have sort/merge utility job scripts written for the VAX environment, and are looking for a familiar interface and equivalent functionality when migrating to an 'open systems' platform like Tru64 Unix, HP-UX, Linux or Windows.

Solution:

The CoSort package's Sort Control Language (SortCL) program, at the suggestion of DEC in the early 1990s, adopted some of the semantic structure of the VAX VMS sort/merge utility. For this reason, VMS users are quite comfortable working, and expanding their functional possibilities, in SortCL.

Consider this simple, sample CoSort (SortCL) job script:

/INFILE=chiefs.dat
   /process=record
   /field=(LastName, position=1, size=10)
   /field=(FirstName, pos=12, size=20)
   /field=(Year, pos=25, size=2, packed)
   /field=(Party, pos=30, size=3, ebcdic)
   /field=(State, pos=35, size=2)
   /include where State EQ "NY"

/SORT
/key=Party
/key=LastName

/OUTFILE=chiefs.csv
   /process=csv
   /field=(FirstName, pos=1, sep=',')
   /field=(LastName, pos=2, sep=',')
   /field=(Year, pos=3, sep=',', numeric)
   /field=(Party, pos=4, sep=',', ascii)
/field=(State, pos=5, sep=',')

Many of the keywords and parameter conventions are the same, but IRI has introduced many functional and performance innovations since introducing the SortCL interface to CoSort, including: joins, Perl-compatible regular expressions, field-level encryption, lookups, reporting features, and custom transformations.

IRI, The CoSort Company