The MERGE control statement is required for every merge application. The MERGE control statement can also define a copy application.
Cultural Environment Support
Cultural environment support allows you to choose an alternative set of collating rules based on a specified national language. The alternative collating applies to SORT/MERGE and INCLUDE/OMIT processing.
For additional detail, see LOCALE.
MERGE Control Statement Format
The format of the MERGE control statement is illustrated below:
FIELDS Parameter (Required for a Merge)
The FIELDS parameter is required for a merge. It describes the control fields.
List the control fields in order of greatest to least priority, with the primary control field listed first, followed by progressively less significant fields. You can specify up to 128 control fields; however, if fields require complex internal processing, the limit for a particular execution may be less than 128.
| p | The position value indicates the first byte of the field relative to the beginning of the input record after INREC and/or E32 processing, if specified, have completed. Binary control fields can begin on any bit of a byte. When a binary field does not begin on a byte boundary, you must specify the bit number (0-7). For example, a position value of 21.3 refers to the 4th bit of the 21st byte of the record. |
| l | The length value indicates the length of the control field. The length value must be an integer number of bytes, except for the length of a binary control field which can be specified in bits. For example, a length value of 0.5 refers to a binary control field 5 bits long. For signed fields, the length value must include the area occupied by the sign. |
| f | The format value indicates the data format. For a list of valid formats, refer to the table Table 1. If all the control fields have the same format, you can specify the format value once by using the FORMAT=f subparameter. If you specify both the individual f values and the FORMAT subparameter, the individual f values will be used for fields where they are specified. |
| o | The order value indicates how the field is to be collated: A=Ascending order D=Descending order E=As modified by an E61 exit |