Formatting Output Records – DFSORT Tutorial

Q. What does one understand by the phrase – Formatting of Output Records? Why do we need to format them?

When we generate an Output using DFSORT sometimes, the records are not in a presentable format. For example, in the output records, there might not be a space between two fields. Or you might want to insert a $ sign for the currency field. You might want to re-order the fields, or display only selected fields/columns in the Output. This type of formatting of records can be done using DFSORT. You can format the records to be sorted in a particular way, prior to the sorting. This is also possible. So, for better presentation/easier understanding of the report, we re-format the records produced in Output. For re-formatting of records, there are mainly 3 tools at your disposal - BUILD - Reformat each record by specifying all of its items one by one. Here, you can add,delete or re-arrange fields. OVERLAY - It allows you to change (edit) the values in specific columns. IFTHEN - Reformats different records in different ways. The above re-formatting tools can be used with INREC, OUTREC and OUTFIL. INREC - Used to reformat the records before applying sort. OUTREC - Used to reformat the records after applying sort.

Q. How to generate a Report, which displays only specific(desired) columns in the Output?

Suppose you are given the following Input Dataset. ----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+----6----+----7-- AG10001  RAMESH CHANDRA GUHA INDIA     MAHARASHT MUMBAI    01000        AG10002  QUASAR SHABBIR CHUN INDIA     MAHARASHT PUNE      02000        AG10003  VEERAMANI DARYAGANJ INDIA     MAHARASHT NAGPUR    03000        AG10004  DELPHAN FERANDAZ    INDIA     TAMIL NAD CHENNAI   04000        AG10005  PADMAVATHI SUNDARAM INDIA     TAMIL NAD SALEM     05000        AG10006  NEELESHWARI IYER    INDIA     TAMIL NAD ERNAKULAM 06000        AG10007  AJAY NANUBHAI PARSA INDIA     WEST BENG KOLKATA   07000        AG10008  MEHUL POPATLAL SUTA INDIA     WEST BENG KHARAGPUR 08000        AG10009  KRITHIKA RAMANUJAM  INDIA     WEST BENG SUNDARBAN 09000        AG10010  ANKUR CHOUDHARY     INDIA     PUNJAB    AMRITSAR  10000        AG10011  HIREN NITIN SHETH   INDIA     PUNJAB    JALANDHAR 11000        AG10012  DARSHAN SHAH        INDIA     HARYANA   CHANDIGAR 12000        In the output report, you are asked to display only the name of the Insurance Agent and the Sales Figure. Since, we want reformat records after applying SORT, we will OUTREC FIELDS Control statement. We want to have two columns/fields in the ouput - NAME   Start-Position 10    Length 20 SALES  Start-Position 60    Length 05 Thus, we can write the Batch JOB/JCL for the above requirement as follows : ----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+----6----+----7-- //CAA0176J JOB A123,QUASAR,NOTIFY=&SYSUID                               //STEP01 EXEC  PGM=SORT,REGION=1024K                                    //SORTIN DD    DSN=CAA0176.DEMO.SORTIN,DISP=SHR                         //SYSPRINT DD  SYSOUT=*                                                 //SYSOUT DD    SYSOUT=*                                                 //SORTOUT DD   DSN=CAA0176.DEMO.SORTOUT,DISP=(OLD,KEEP,KEEP)            //SYSIN  DD    *                                                          SORT FIELDS=COPY -                                                      OUTREC FIELDS=(10,20,60,5)                                            //                                                                      Note that, we have written SORT FIELDS=COPY, which simply copies the Input Records to the Output, and displays NAME and SALES Columns. Upon submitting the above Batch JOB/JCL, we get the following Output : ----+----1----+----2----+ RAMESH CHANDRA GUHA 01000 QUASAR SHABBIR CHUN 02000 VEERAMANI DARYAGANJ 03000 DELPHAN FERANDAZ    04000 PADMAVATHI SUNDARAM 05000 NEELESHWARI IYER    06000 AJAY NANUBHAI PARSA 07000 MEHUL POPATLAL SUTA 08000 KRITHIKA RAMANUJAM  09000 ANKUR CHOUDHARY     10000 HIREN NITIN SHETH   11000 DARSHAN SHAH        12000 A lot more formatting is possible on the above report. Read on to know more...

Q. What if I wanted the SALES field/column to be displayed before(first) and then the NAME Field/Column? How do you re-order columns in the Output Report?

If we would like to display the SALES Column first, and then the agent-names, we can simply change the order in OUTREC FIELDS statement.   SORT FIELDS=COPY -                                                      OUTREC FIELDS=(60,5,10,20)   Upon submitting a Batch JOB/JCL with the above control statements, we get the following output : ----+----1----+----2----+ 01000RAMESH CHANDRA GUHA 02000QUASAR SHABBIR CHUN 03000VEERAMANI DARYAGANJ 04000DELPHAN FERANDAZ    05000PADMAVATHI SUNDARAM 06000NEELESHWARI IYER    07000AJAY NANUBHAI PARSA 08000MEHUL POPATLAL SUTA 09000KRITHIKA RAMANUJAM  10000ANKUR CHOUDHARY     11000HIREN NITIN SHETH   12000DARSHAN SHAH

Q. I’ve understood, how to re-order the columns, but the above output report looks like greek(Cyrilic) – there should be some space between the fields SALES and NAME. How do you insert a SPACE/SPACES?

Since the above output looks very clumsy, to make this report more readable we would like to insert 2 blank spaces between SALES and AGENT-NAME. To insert a blank space, we use X. To insert 2 blank spaces, we write 2X.   SORT FIELDS=COPY -                                                       OUTREC FIELDS=(60,5,2X,10,20)                                          Thus, upon submitting a Batch JOB/JCL with the above Control Statements, we get the following Output Report. ----+----1----+----2----+- 01000  RAMESH CHANDRA GUHA 02000  QUASAR SHABBIR CHUN 03000  VEERAMANI DARYAGANJ 04000  DELPHAN FERANDAZ   05000  PADMAVATHI SUNDARAM 06000  NEELESHWARI IYER   07000  AJAY NANUBHAI PARSA 08000  MEHUL POPATLAL SUTA 09000  KRITHIKA RAMANUJAM 10000  ANKUR CHOUDHARY    11000  HIREN NITIN SHETH  12000  DARSHAN SHAH       If you want to fill in blanks in the last field, you use the syntax c:X, where c is the column till where the padding takes place. For example, OUTREC FIELDS=(60,5,2X,10,20,140:X)

Q. What if I wanted to insert a Character string like ‘IS SALES FOR’ between the two fields? What if I wanted to insert a Date and Timestamp?

You can insert characters at any position by tying C'<Characters>'. Suppose all records have length 65 bytes. Suppose, you would like to insert at the end of each record the current date and timestamp. Then, we would insert DATE1 and TIME2 fields respectively. This is the Batch JOB/JCL for doing it. ----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+----6----+----7-- //CAA0176L JOB A123,QUASAR,NOTIFY=&SYSUID                               //STEP01 EXEC  PGM=SORT,REGION=1024K                                    //SORTIN DD    DSN=CAA0176.DEMO.SORTIN,DISP=SHR                         //SYSPRINT DD  SYSOUT=*                                                 //SYSOUT DD    SYSOUT=*                                                 //SORTOUT DD   DSN=CAA0176.DEMO.SORTOUT,DISP=(OLD,KEEP,KEEP)            //SYSIN  DD    *                                                          SORT FIELDS=COPY -                                                      OUTREC FIELDS=(60,5,2X,10,20,X,DATE1(/),X,TIME2(:))                   //                                                                      Upon submitting the above Batch JOB/JCL, we get the following Output Report, with the Date and Time printed : ----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+ 01000  RAMESH CHANDRA GUHA  2009/07/29 03:32 02000  QUASAR SHABBIR CHUN  2009/07/29 03:32 03000  VEERAMANI DARYAGANJ  2009/07/29 03:32 04000  DELPHAN FERANDAZ     2009/07/29 03:32 05000  PADMAVATHI SUNDARAM  2009/07/29 03:32 06000  NEELESHWARI IYER     2009/07/29 03:32 07000  AJAY NANUBHAI PARSA  2009/07/29 03:32 08000  MEHUL POPATLAL SUTA  2009/07/29 03:32 09000  KRITHIKA RAMANUJAM   2009/07/29 03:32 10000  ANKUR CHOUDHARY      2009/07/29 03:32 11000  HIREN NITIN SHETH    2009/07/29 03:32 12000  DARSHAN SHAH         2009/07/29 03:32 In the next tutorial, find out how to replace certain characters/fields, eliminate junk characters like LF, changing lower case to upper case and vice versa and much more.. Hope you’ve enjoyed!