The C$SORT library routine sorts indexed, relative, sequential and line sequential files. It takes only one parameter that matches with the instructions you would pass to the ISSORT (External Sort) utility on the command line.

The routine internally uses the SORT verb, so it’s affected by the configuration settings whose name starts with "iscobol.sort" (e.g. iscobol.sort.memsize). The routine uses the file handler specified in the configuration to sort a specific kind of file. For example, when sorting indexed files, the routine uses the file handler specified by the iscobol.file.index property. The activity of this routine is traced in the isCOBOL log if iscobol.tracelevel includes the value 8 (trace file activity).

returnCode can be any numeric data item and provides additional information:

Example - Sort the indexed file named idxfile by reading records on the primary key in descending order, discard records whose data at offset 37 length 4 bytes represents a numeric value less than 902. Save the result to a line sequential file named output.txt.