Sort stage: Sorting keys

Key

Specifies the key column for sorting. This property can be repeated to specify multiple key columns. You can use the Column Selection dialog box to select several keys at once if required. Key has dependent properties depending on the Sort Utility chosen:

• Sort Order

  All sort types. Choose Ascending or Descending. The default is Ascending.

• Nulls position

  This property appears for sort type DataStage® and is optional. By default columns containing null values appear first in the sorted data set. To override this default so that columns containing null values appear last in the sorted data set, select Last.

• Sort as EBCDIC

  To sort as in the EBCDIC character set, choose True.

• Case Sensitive

  All sort types. This property is optional. Use this to specify whether each group key is case sensitive or not, this is set to True by default, that is, the values "CASE" and "case" would not be judged equivalent.

• Sort Key Mode

  This property appears for sort type DataStage. It is set to Sort by default and this sorts on all the specified key columns.

  Set to Don't Sort (Previously Sorted) to specify that input records are already sorted by this column. The Sort stage will then sort on secondary key columns, if any. This option can increase the speed of the sort and reduce the amount of temporary disk space when your records are already sorted by the primary key column(s) because you only need to sort your data on the secondary key column(s).

  Set to Don't Sort (Previously Grouped) to specify that input records are already grouped by this column, but not sorted. The operator will then sort on any secondary key columns. This option is useful when your records are already grouped by the primary key column(s), but not necessarily sorted, and you want to sort your data only on the secondary key column(s) within each group