What is WHEN=INIT and WHEN= GROUP in JCL sort

[Sunil Hyderbad]

Hi,

What is WHEN=INIT and WHEN= GROUP in JCL sort.

Could someone please guide.

[Robert Sample]

From the z/OS DFSORT: Getting Started manual:

WHEN=INIT: Use one or more WHEN=INIT clauses to apply BUILD, FINDREP or OVERLAY items to all of your input records. WHEN=INIT clauses and WHEN=GROUP clauses are processed before any of the other IFTHEN clauses.
WHEN=GROUP: Use one or more WHEN=GROUP clauses to propagate fields, identifiers and sequence numbers within groups of records. You define the records that belong to a group using an appropriate combination of BEGIN=(logexp), END=(logexp), KEYBEGIN=(field) and RECORDS=n parameters.

[Sunil Hyderbad]

Thank you Robert.

I looked at that definition myself too, but I fail to understand it. I was not able to understand what makes a group, INIT is possibly when the first expression met.

[Robert Sample]

You define the records that belong to a group using an appropriate combination of BEGIN=(logexp), END=(logexp), KEYBEGIN=(field) and RECORDS=n parameters.

A group is whatever you need it to be -- it could be based upon the values in a particular column or columns, for example.

WHEN=INIT applies to all the records, while WHEN=GROUP only applies to those records which meet the criteria you've established.

[Sunil Hyderbad]

Thanks Robert.