Conditionally hanging the length of variable length records.

[Sayton]

I have a VB input file where all of the records start with a fixed identifier in RDW + 0 (the first data portion of the record - the "record type").
I am happily modifying the input data records based on the "record type", except for one particular record type - the "3B900".
For this type, I happen to know that it's a 20 byte record (including the RDW). My problem is that I need to add a 7 byte field containing character zeroes to the end of the record, and increase its size to 27 bytes.
The following sort of explains what I'm trying to do, but doesn't work!

OPTION COPY

OUTFIL FILES=OUT,
IFTHEN(WHEN=(05,5,CH,EQ,C'3B300',AND,
13,4,CH,EQ,C'04'),
OVERLAY=(30:C'01500',
57:C'0225',
65:C'0120')),

IFTHEN(WHEN=(05,5,CH,EQ,C'3B900'),
OVERLAY=(21:C'0000000'),
IFOUTLEN=27)

The "IFOUTLEN" clause gets errored in the above example, but I've tried a few similar combinations, all to no avail. It looks like IFOUTLEN works on ALL records.

Has anyone got any ideas on how to just change the record length for specific records only, without affecting the length of the other records in the file?

[Alissa Margulies]

Sayton,

Have you tried just removing the IFOUTLEN statement? If you are still not getting the desired results after making this change, please identify which SORT utility and the release you are running.

[Frank Yaeger]

Sayton,

You can use a DFSORT job like this:

Code: Select all

//S1    EXEC  PGM=SORT
//SYSOUT    DD  SYSOUT=*
//SORTIN DD DSN=...  input file (VB)
//SORTOUT DD DSN=...  output file (VB)
//SYSIN    DD    *
  OPTION COPY
  OUTFIL FILES=OUT,
    IFTHEN=(WHEN=(5,5,CH,EQ,C'3B300',AND,
      13,4,CH,EQ,C'04'),
     OVERLAY=(30:C'01500',
       57:C'0225',
       65:C'0120')),
    IFTHEN=(WHEN=(5,5,CH,EQ,C'3B900'),
     OVERLAY=(21:7C'0'))
/*

[Sayton]

Alissa & Frank....

Thanks for your efforts, but the problem was a lot simpler than I thought it was.
The real problem is that I'm an idiot!
The clue is in the parameter
WHEN=(05,5,CH,EQ,C'3B300',AND,
13,4,CH,EQ,C'04'),
which should have read
WHEN=(05,5,CH,EQ,C'3B300',AND,
13,2,CH,EQ,C'04'),

With that correction made, several of my aborted attempts started working!

Another of the "I'll just re-use this code" perils!

Nonetheless, thanks to all you guys out there who took the issue seriously, and offered assistance.

[Frank Yaeger]

Oh, I thought you wanted to compare against '04 ' with two trailing blanks which is what your original statement would have done.