<CHARACTERS>

This sort sequence is used by the Sortmatch group to sort inputs and is also used in any string comparisons in the rule file.

Multiple strings are concatenated into one sort sequence. The total length of the sort sequence can be up to 256 characters.

Tag Group

Environment tag group

Syntax

<CHARACTERS> string string…

Parameter Description Default
string Defines the character sort sequence in any valid string format. EBCDIC (mainframe) ASCII (UNIX, Linux, and Windows)

Hints

  1. The character sort sequence strings can be on different lines in the control file and can be in different string formats. For example:
    <CHARACTERS> X'0001020304' 
'ABCDEFG' 
'1234567'
  2. EBCDIC and ASCII have different sort sequences for upper- and lower-case characters. In EBCDIC, lower-case characters are less than upper-case characters while in ASCII the reverse is true. This can lead to different sort results on mainframe and UNIX, Linux, or Windows. You can use the <CHARACTERS> tag to specify a sort sequence common to any environment. For example:
    <CHARACTERS> '0123456789AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKk' 
'LlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz'
  3. International single-byte character sets are also supported using <CHARACTERS>. Any sort sequence can be specified.
  4. All 256 characters of the string do not need to be specified. The characters not specified are placed after the ones specified, in their EBCDIC or ASCII order (depending on the platform).