On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:29:12 -0700, Frank Yaeger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
>It's not clear to me what you're seeing here, but ...
>
>The main difference between DFSORT R14 and z/OS DFSORT V1R5 is that 
V1R5
>can use Memory Object Sorting, a completely new path.  Perhaps what you're
>seeing is caused by the difference in using that new path?  Have you tried
>turning off Memory Object Sorting to check that:
>
>//DFSPARM  DD  *
>   OPTION MOSIZE=0
>/*
>
>Have you opened  PMR?  If so, what's the number?

I have not opened a PMR since I cannot argue that DFSORT is working 
incorrectly given your reply to a previous post about a week ago and the 
documentation for the equals parm.  I try not to abuse the PMR process and 
only open them when I think the fault is with the code or I don't think I have 
another choice.  Right now I don't think SORT is working incorrectly, just 
incompatibly with our application as the vendor delivered it and we 
implemented it.

What we are seeing is that z/OS 1.7 sort is working differently than 1.4 with 
respect to records with duplicate sort fields (I must admit based on too little 
testing but I can only do what I can do in the hours that I have) .  As I noted 
before with one small JCL SORT test (31360 records, 28224000 bytes) run 
multiple times, the only way I get the same results out of the two systems is 
if I specify OPTION EQUALS in a DFSPARM DD on the 1.4 system or if I use a 
JOBLIB on the 1.7 system to point to the 1.4 libraries.  I have tried this 
several times and received consistent results (with the over-rides the output 
matches, without them it doesn't).  I even tried specifying EQUALS and 
NOEQUALS on the 1.7 systems as well as the default and all output files from 
the 1.7 system match each other consistently (EQUALS/NOEQUALS has no 
affect on 1.7 in this scenario I expect because it is such a small sort).

I am asking if over-riding sort on the 1.7 system via JOBLIB to the 1.4 system 
libraries should work.  I realize that I have tried this already but trying 
something on one small job is a lot different than setting up an entire batch 
cycle over the weekend that will run for several hours.  I would like to know 
if 
this should work for my test before I put in my time and that of other 
departments necessary to get this set up.  My other option would be to IPL 
back to 1.4 for the test but that has it's own issues and would reverse 
everything not just SORT and I really wanted to isolate one thing at a time as 
best I could. 

For some background on how this started.  We used to be able to load our 
UAT DB2 tables from PROD image copies using DSN1COPY and copy over 
selected files from PROD that PROD was going to read into the nightly cycle 
and then run the UAT cycle the next day and compare the results.  The 
compare would match on everything except a couple files that had 
date/timestamp information in the records and if that section of the record 
was excluded, then even those would match.  This worked back to at least 
OS/390 2.10 and possibly 2.8.  I set things up to run this process just before 
migrating z/OS 1.7 into production (thinking it was only a formality and all 
would be good with the world) and this time there were many mismatches that 
appeared to be SORT sequence issues (mostly matching delete/insert pairs) .  
Although these SORT sequence issues may be explainable and of no 
consequence to the business (we are still researching that) we have also had 
a couple records process incorrectly (out of hundreds of thousands).  So far 
we have not been able to explain this.  It may be that a sporadic problem has 
hit us in two out of two of these big tests that for some reason did not hit 
production using the exact same data/programs (which seems unlikely) or it 
may be that the difference in the SORT is causing issues and we really need 
to increase our SORT fields to get the records into a predictable order or it 
may be something else all together.  

I am grasping as straws and trying to eliminate just SORT by pointing to the 
old SORT via JOBLIB for a test this weekend.  The hope is that we can isolate 
the cause down to the SORT differences which will tell us where to focus.  If 
the run this weekend using the 1.4 libraries on the 1.7 system matches the 
prior nights production, we will restore everything back to the beginning and 
try again with the 1.7 libraries (DFSORT 1.5 I believe) and see if the issues 
come back.  If it doesn't match, then we will probably need to examine the 
setup again.  I fully realize we may have multiple problems so I am trying to 
find the easiest way to eliminate one thing at a time and the known difference 
at the moment is SORT (yes everything in the ServerPac is potentially 
different but I gota start somewhere).  Even if this isn't causing both issues, 
by eliminating this, it may make finding the other easier.

Sorry for the long reply and I hope you can answer my questions regarding 
pointing to the old sort for this test.

Thank you in advance once again,
Greg

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