This tutorial will teach you how to read selective lines from the beginning of a Physical Sequential (PS File) file using SORT. Like many features, SORT provides two control keyword – SKIPREC and STOPAFT which can be used to skip records and read selective no of lines.

Keyword Explanation

SKIPREC=n : How many “n” lines to be skipped from the first line.
STOPAFT=n : Once “n” lines are read, stop reading.

We will use a simple example to demonstrate this. Say you have a input file of employee records including various descriptions.

//SORTIN DD *
FIRST NAME: JOHN
LAST NAME: DOE
DEPT: HR
SALARY: 10000
JOIN DATE: 4/5/2012
/*

We want to read the DEPT and SALARY using sort and put it in output file. DEPT is in 3rd line and we will read only 2 lines from there. Thus SORT control card would look like:

//SYSIN DD *
SORT FIELDS=COPY,
SKIPREC=2,
STOPAFT=2
/*

If you run the JOB, your output would be:

DEPT: HR
SALARY: 10000

Complete JCL:

//YOUR.JOB.CARD.HERE
//*
//STEP1 EXEC PGM=SORT
//** You can give your input PS file here instead of in stream data
//SORTIN DD *
FIRST NAME: JOHN
LAST NAME: DOE
DEPT: HR
SALARY: 10000
JOIN DATE: 4/5/2012
/*
//** You can give your OUTPUT PS file here instead of in stream data
//SORTOUT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSIN DD *
SORT FIELDS=COPY,
SKIPREC=2,
STOPAFT=2
/*

Drop a comment below if you face any problem using the above example.