>>>I agree that Sort may not be as easy as a programming language. For example, with REXX you can do LEFT(var,5,'0') or RIGHT(var,5,'0') and that will place zeros up to the number of positions. In Unix, or Perl, or COBOL, or EASYTRIEVE, or Assembler, not hard to do.
Lizette, I have to disagree on that. In this case OP showed an complicated cards which are quite unnecessary as the solution is just as simple as a rexx LEFT/RIGHT command. ( see my solution which was posted earlier) >>>*only if the length of the number is 4 * ???? What about 3 or 2 or 1 digits ?. Shane, The solution I have shown will account for lengths 1 thru 6 and will pad the necessary zeroes. >>>Without wishing to appear a "die hard defender of DFSORT" :-) I would expect DFSORT's I/O speed to be better than that of a program (even with decent Sequential File tuning). But that quite possibly DOESN'T matter. Thanks Martin and I agree with your statement as I am indeed a die hard defender of DFSORT. :) >>>The OP, like many others here, does not appear to want or even to have considered writing a programmed resolution of his problem. He wants to use sort control statements instead. He can certainly do so too, but why? John, I agree with you but there are instances where a 40-50 line COBOL program work is done with a single keyword in DFSORT. Just like in programming there are many people who just complicate a simple task. In this case OP just needed a simple Overlay but instead chose an IFTHEN statement making it complicated. Over the past few years DFSORT has evolved and now can do a lot more than simple sorting. Thanks Kolusu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
