SORT Error

[Karthik Yedu Kumar]

Hi .. I am facing the below error in the sort routines in multiple programs ..

%COB-F-SORT_ERROR, Error during SORT or MERGE on SD
-SORT-F-SORT_ON, sort or merge routines called in incorrect order
%TRACE-F-TRACEBACK, symbolic stack dump follows

I am looking for as much info on the possible causes as possible ..

Thanks

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Did it ever work? What changed?
OpenVMS? (certainly looks like it :-)
Version ? Platform ? relevant Patches?

My first guess? Something wrong the definition of SYS$SCRATCH !
Perhaps it is not defined, because the program is run detached in production, interactively during test?
Perhaps pointing to an inaccessible place?

My second guess?
The program 'fell' into a sort INPUT (or OUTPUT ) PROCEDURE paragraph.

>>> SORT-F-SORT_ON, sort or merge routines called in incorrect order

Where they?
What Cobol statement caused the error?
SORT itself? A RELEASE or a RETURN ?

>>> TRACEBACK, symbolic stack dump follows

Well, does the traceback give you a clue where the program was?

If the problem persists, sprinkle the program with DISPLAYs statements to help you understand where it has been and where it tried to go.
Good Luck!
Hein

[abrsvc]

As Hein stated, there are many possibilities. Can you post the traceback? Perhaps a code snipit around the failing Cobol statement?

We need a little more info to go on here.

Thanks,
Dan

[Andy Bustamante]

Other things to check in the "Did this ever work" column:

Quotas against data growth and user privileges. Same user(s) or different?

[John Gillings]

I think this is 2 errors. The SORT_ERROR is the one you're interested in. SORT_ON is a consequence of the previous error.

Check that PGFLQUOTA is high enough. Specificially some significant multiple of the resultant WSEXTENT for the process. Check the *actual* WSEXTENT, not the one in SYSUAF.

[Richard J Maher]

Hi Karthik,

I'm with Hein. Id look for a logic condition (or code change) that has led to a code-path where a return is coming before a release/sort.

Cheers Richard Maher

[Pramod Kumar M]

Hi,

Yes, as everybody said you need to look at the traceback information and figure out the root cause of this issue. You can also get a process dump by setting set process/dump and then look at the process dump whether any of the quota is exhausted or working set is exhausted etc.

-Pramod.