By Shawn Gordon

Newswire Classic

How many times have you just had some simple data in a table in your program that you wanted to sort? It seems like a waste of time to go through and write it to a file and sort the file and read it back in. COBOL has a verb to allow you to sort tables.

I’ve actually gotten a few e-mails recently asking me about this verb and sorting strategies, so I thought I would go over it. What I have this month is both a simple bubble sort, as well as a more complex but efficient shell sort. The bubble sort in Figure 1 only requires that we have two counters, one save buffer, and one table max variable, on top of the table data.

Here's the code in text, if you want to copy and paste, and apply your own formatting.

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 SAVE-CODE PIC X(04) VALUE SPACES.
01 S1 PIC S9(4) COMP VALUE 0.
01 S2 PIC S9(4) COMP VALUE 0.
01 TABLE-MAX PIC S9(4) COMP VALUE 0.
01 CODE-TABLE.
03 CODE-DATA PIC X(04) OCCURS 100 TIMES.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
A1000-INIT.
*
* Do whatever steps are necessary to fill CODE-TABLE with the values
* you are going to use in your program. Make sure to increment
* TABLE-MAX for each entry you put in the table.
*
* Now we are going to perform a bubble sort of the table.
*
PERFORM VARYING S1 FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL S1 = TABLE-MAX
PERFORM VARYING S2 FROM S1 BY 1 UNTIL S2 > TABLE-MAX
IF CODE-DATA(S2) < CODE-DATA(S1)
MOVE CODE-DATA(S1) TO SAVE-CODE
MOVE CODE-DATA(S2) TO CODE-DATA(S1)
MOVE SAVE-CODE TO CODE-DATA(S2)
END-IF
END-PERFORM
END-PERFORM.

As you can see, this is a pretty trivial and easy to implement solution for simple tables.

What we have in Figure 2 is a macro that does a shell sort. I got this originally from John Zoltak, and the following text is his, with some slight edits from me.

He says, “When I want to sort the array I use

MOVE number-of-elements to N-SUB.
%SORTTABLE(TABLE-NAME#, HOLD-AREA#).

“Figure 2 below uses the shell sort, faster than a bubble. Also since it’s a macro, I can sort on any table. The only real constraint is that it compares the whole table element, so you just have to arrange your table element so it sorts the way you want.”

Again, here's the text from the routine for you to copy and paste

* SHELL SORT ROUTINE
*
* This macro expects parameter 1 to be the element of the
* table to be sorted. This sort compares the entire element.
* Parameter 2 is the element hold area. Can be a higher
* element of the table if you wish.
*
* To use this sort macro, you must COPY it into your program
* in the 01 LEVEL area. Four (4) variables will be declared
* and the $DEFINE for %SORTTABLE will be defined.
*
* Before invoking this macro you must set N-SUB to the
* highest table element to be sorted.
01 I-SUB PIC S9(4) COMP.
01 J-SUB PIC S9(4) COMP.
01 M-SUB PIC S9(4) COMP.
01 N-SUB PIC S9(4) COMP.
$DEFINE %SORTTABLE=
IF N-SUB > 1
MOVE N-SUB TO M-SUB
PERFORM TEST AFTER UNTIL M-SUB = 1
DIVIDE 2 INTO M-SUB
ADD 1 TO M-SUB GIVING I-SUB
PERFORM UNTIL I-SUB > N-SUB
MOVE !1(I-SUB) TO !2
MOVE I-SUB TO J-SUB
SUBTRACT M-SUB FROM J-SUB GIVING TALLY
PERFORM UNTIL J-SUB <= M-SUB OR
!1(TALLY) <= !2
MOVE !1(TALLY) TO !1(J-SUB)
SUBTRACT M-SUB FROM J-SUB
SUBTRACT M-SUB FROM J-SUB GIVING TALLY
END-PERFORM
MOVE !2 TO !1(J-SUB)
ADD 1 TO I-SUB
END-PERFORM
END-PERFORM
END-IF#