Explain the difference between an internal and an external sort, the pros and cons, internal sort syntax etc?
An external sort is not COBOL; it is performed through JCL and PGM=SORT. It is understandable without any code reference. An internal sort can use two different syntaxes: 1.) USING, GIVING sorts are comparable to external sorts with no extra file processing; 2) INPUT PROCEDURE, OUTPUT PROCEDURE sorts allow for data manipulation before and/or after the sort.
1. Internal sort is used in COBOL application prog while external sort is used in JCL.
2. Internal sort uses workfiles while external sort uses the DFSORT mechanism.
3. External sort is more complicated than internal sort.
4. Internal sort is more flexible as we can alter or update data before and after performing internal sort whereas the same doesn't hold true for external sort.
Thanks Neha
Above answer was rated as good by the following members: vukoti1229
RE: Explain the difference between an internal and an ...
External sort is performed by SORT pgm. Internal sort gives you data handling flexibility and it takes less secondary memory. For huge Volume of files it's better to use internal sort else large amount of space will be required in external sort. any comments...?
RE: Explain the difference between an internal and an ...
external sorting is used to refer to the sorting of huge volumes of data where the available main memory is not enough to handle the data. internal sorting is used for small volumes of data.. ext sorting is mostly less efficient
RE: Explain the difference between an internal and an ...
1. Internal sort is used in COBOL application prog while external sort is used in JCL.
2. Internal sort uses workfiles while external sort uses the DFSORT mechanism.
3. External sort is more complicated than internal sort.
4. Internal sort is more flexible as we can alter or update data before and after performing internal sort whereas the same doesn't hold true for external sort.
RE: Explain the difference between an internal and an external sort, the pros and cons, internal sort syntax etc?
This has long been a question as it relates to efficiency. The answer really depends on how much data needs to be sorted. The internal sort is simply an invocation of the same SORT utility that is JCL initiated (external sort).
When you run an external sort, the entire address space is dedicated to the sort process. This means that, outside the sort program itself, all of the storage is used for buffers for the sort strings.
With an internal sort, less storage is available to the sort since the application program and any other elements (DB2, MQ, etc.) take up some of that storage.
If the amount of data is small, the difference in available storage is insignificant. The sort will run just as fast. In fact, doing all the work in a program can be more efficient because the JCL allocation/deallocation steps are done once instead of once for the sort step and once for the program step.
RE: Explain the difference between an internal and an external sort, the pros and cons, internal sort syntax etc?
An external sort is not COBOL; it is performed through JCL and PGM=SORT. It is understandable without any code reference. An internal sort can use two different syntaxes: 1.) USING, GIVING sorts are comparable to external sorts with no extra file processing; 2) INPUT PROCEDURE, OUTPUT PROCEDURE sorts allow for data manipulation before and/or after the sort.
RE: Explain the difference between an internal and an external sort, the pros and cons, internal sort syntax etc?
Whenever you are going to manipulate any records befor sorting we are going for Internal sort.. If we dont have anything to manipulate we will go for external sort.....