Vos Goals

(-) Processes record layouts and SQL­like field definitions from central data dictionaries.

(-) Converts and processes native COBOL copybook, Oracle SQL*Loader control file, CSV, and W3C extended log format (ELF) file layouts.

(-) SortCL data definition files are a supported MIMB metadata format.

(-) Mix of on­line help, pre­runtime application validation, and runtime error messages.

(-) Leverages centralized application and file layout definitions (metadata repositories).

(=) Reports problems to standard error when invoked from a program, or to an error log.

(-) Runs silently or with verbose messaging without user intervention.

(-) Allows user control over the amount of informational output produced.

(-) Generates a query­ready XML audit log for data forensics and privacy compliance.

(=) Describes commands and options through man pages and on­line documentation.

it’s half done because the program is always moving to a new features. it’s not wise to mark this as 'done’.

(-) Easy­to­use interfaces and seamless third­party sort replacements preclude the need for training classes

(+) Sets and allows user modification of the maximum and minimum number of concurrent sort threads for sorting on multi­CPU and multi­core systems.

Using PROCESS_MAX variable.

(+) Uses a specified directory, a combination of directories, for temporary work files.

Using PROC_TMP_DIR variable.

(+) Limits the amount of main and virtual memory used during sort operations.

Using PROCESS_MAX_ROW variable.

Since input file size is unpredictable and a human is still need to run the program, the amount of program memory still cannot decide by human. What if it’s set to 1 kilobytes ?.

(+) Sets the size of the memory blocks used as physical I/O buffers.

Using FILE_BUFFER_SIZE variable.

(=) Processes any number of files, of any size, and any number of records, fixed or variable length to 65,535 bytes passed from an input procedure, from stdin, a named pipe, a table in memory, or from an application program.

(?) Supports the use of environment variables.

(=) Supports wildcard in the specification of input and output files, as well as absolute path names and aliases.

(+) Accepts and outputs fixed­ or variable­length records with delimited field.

(?) Generates one or more output files, and/or summary information, including formatted and dashboard­ready reports.

(-) Returns sorted, merged, or joined records one (or more) at a time to an output procedure, to stdout (or named pipe), a table in memory, one or more new or existing files, or to a program.

(-) Outputs optional sequence numbers with each record, at any starting value, for indexed loads and/or reports.

(=) Includes or omits input or output records using field­to­field or field constant comparisons.

TODO: field-to-field comparisons

(-) Compares on any number of data fields, using standard and alternate collating sequences.

(+) Sorts and/or reformats groups of selected records.

Using SORT and CREATE statement.

(+) Matches two or more sorted or unsorted files on inner and outer join criteria using SQL­based condition syntax.

Using JOIN with '+' or '-' statement.

(-) Skips a specified number of records, bytes, or a file header or footer.

(-) Processes a specified number of records or bytes, including a saved header.

(-) Eliminates or saves records with duplicate keys.

(+) Allows any number of key fields to be specified in ascending or descending order.

(+) Supports any number of fields from 0 to 65,535 bytes in length.

Almost unlimited, the limit is your memory.

(+) Orders fixed position fields, or floating fields with one or more delimiters.

(-) Supports numeric keys, including all C, FORTRAN, and COBOL data types.

(-) Supports single­ and multi­byte character keys, including ASCII, EBCDIC, ASCII in EBCDIC sequence, American, European, ISO and Japanese timestamps, and natural (locale­dependent) values, as well as Unicode and double­byte characters such as Big5, EUC­TW, UTF32, and S­JIS.

(-) Allows left or right alignment and case shifting of character keys.

(-) Accepts user compare procedures for multi­byte, encrypted and other special data.

(-) Performs record sequence checking.

(+) Maintains input record order (stability) on duplicate keys.

(-) Controls treatment of null fields when specifying floating (character separated) keys.

(-) Collates and converts between many of the following data types (formats).

(+) Inserts, removes, resizes, and reorders fields within records; defines new fields.

(-) Converts data in fields from one format to another either using internal conversion.

(-) Maps common fields from differently formatted input files to a uniform sort record.

(=) Joins any fields from several files into an output record, usually based on a condition.

Using JOIN statement. current support only in joining two input files.

(-) Changes record layouts from one file type to another, including: Line Sequential, Record Sequential, Variable Sequential, Blocked, Microsoft Comma Separated Values (CSV), ACUCOBOL Vision, MF I­SAM, MFVL, Unisys VBF, VSAM (within UniKik MBM), Extended Log Format (W3C), LDIF, and XML.

(-) Maps processed records to many differently formatted output files, including HTML.

(-) Writes multiple record formats to the same file for complex report requirements.

(-) Performs mathematical expressions and functions on field data (including aggregate data) to generate new output fields.

(-) Calculates the difference in days, hours, minutes and seconds between timestamps.

(-) Aligns desired field contents to either the left or right of the target field, where any leading or trailing fill characters from the source are moved to the opposite side of the string.

(-) Processes values from multi­dimensional, tab­delimited lookup files.

(-) Creates and processes sub­strings of original field contents, where you can specify a positive or negative offset and a number of bytes to be contained in the sub­string.

(-) Finds a user­specified text string in a given field, and replaces all occurrences of it with a different user­specified text string in the target field.

(-) Supports Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE), including pattern matching.

(-) Uses C­style “iscompare” functions to validate contents at the field level (for example, to determine if all field characters are printable), which can also be used for record­filtering via selection statements.

(-) Protects sensitive field data with field­level de­identification and AES­256 encryption routines, along with anonymization, pseudonymization, filtering and other column-level data masking and obfuscation techniques.

(-) Supports custom, user­written field­level transformation libraries, and documents an example of a field­level data cleansing routine from Melissa Data (AddressObject).

(-) Consolidates records with equal keys into unique records, while totaling, averaging, or counting values in specified fields, including derived (cross­calculated) fields.

(-) Produces maximum, minimum, average, sum, and count fields.

(-) Displays running summary value(s) up to a break (accumulating aggregates).

(-) Breaks on compound conditions.

(-) Allows multiple levels of summary fields in the same report.

(-) Re­maps summary fields into a new format, allowing relational tables.

(-) Ranks data through a running count with descending numeric values.

(-) Writes detail and summary records to the same output file for structured reports.