HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
Chapter 12 SORT/MERGE Operations The sort/merge capabilities of HP COBOL II allow you to sort one or more files of records, or to combine two or more identically ordered files of records one or more times within a given execution of a COBOL program. Additionally, you have the ability to specially process individual records by input or output procedures that are part of the sort or merge operation. For a sort operation, this special processing may be applied before, as well as after the records have been sorted. For a merge operation, this processing may be applied after the records have been combined. The RELEASE and RETURN statements are used in these input procedures to release or return records that are to be, or have been sorted or merged.