I'm having difficulty getting V119 to merge the external sort file and then read the results in. When I read the results (using Function code 'V' in a loop), they are in sorted blocks just as if the merge call never had any effect. Also, it reads in far more (at least twice as much) as I wrote. The sort record contains a word and three numbers, all of which are sorted on, plus a string of characters (which may contain \00\) as satellite data. The file is empty at the start of the operation.

Here's the basic code (somewhat simplified):

V119("I", SORT.FILE$, "", "", "", Flag)

IF Flag ELSE Debug

Bys=AAAA"

Justs=LRRR"

LOOP

 GOSUB CREATE_SORTBLOCK

WHILE LEN(SortBlock)

• Remove trailing @RM

 SortBlock-1,1="

• Sort and write to C:\SORT.DAT

 V119("S", "", Bys, Justs, SortBlock, "")

 V119("W", SORT.FILE$, "", "", SortBlock, Flag)

 IF Flag ELSE DEBUG

 SortBlock="

REPEAT

IF LEN(SortBlock) THEN

 SortBlock-1,1="

• Sort remaining data

 V119("S", "", Bys, Justs, SortBlock, "")

• Write sorted block to DOS file

 V119("W", SORT.FILE$, "", "", SortBlock, Flag)

 IF Flag ELSE DEBUG

END

* Merge sorted block

V119("M", SORT.FILE$, Bys, Justs, "", Flag)

IF Flag ELSE DEBUG

* Read sorted file in in 32K blocks

V119("V", SORT.FILE$, "", "", SortBlock, Flag)

IF Flag ELSE DEBUG

SortBlock-1,1="

BlockLen=LEN(SortBlock)

LastWord="

LOOP

WHILE BlockLen

 SortRec=SortBlockSpos, @RM

 Spos=Col2()+1

 ThisWord=SortRec1, @FM

 ThisPos=SortRecCol2()+1, @FM

 SearchWordNum=SortRecCol2()+1, @FM

 Offset=SortRecCol2()+1, @FM

 CiteInfo=SortRecCol2()+1, @FM

 IF ThisWord # LastWord THEN

    GOSUB PROCESS_WORD

    LastWord=ThisWord

 END ELSE

    GOSUB ADD_TO_STATISTICS

 END

 IF Spos ] BlockLen THEN

• Read another block

    V119("V", SORT.FILE$, "", "", SortBlock, Flag)

    IF Flag ELSE DEBUG

    SortBlock-1,1="

    Spos=1

    BlockLen=LEN(SortBlock)

 END

REPEAT

Many thanks for your time of you can help me on this one.

Dom Glennon

Cambridge University Press

[email protected]

It's okay - the problem was in removing the trailing @RM from the sort block before writing to the file.

Dom

View this thread on the forum...