[open-cobol-list] Bug in Sort Verb

[Hans-Martin Rasch]

Hi,

the newer BDB versions (I don't know since when, we use 4.2) have the 
following feature:
if the key compare function regards two keys to be equal, only one of them is
stored in the BDB database (see BDB Reference Guide, section 3.4.4 "Duplicate 
Data Items").
On the other hand, OC tries to store the complete sort data record in the BDB 
key.
As a consequence, in the sort output two or more sort input records with 
identical sort fields will be overwritten by one of these records.
To solve this problem, the key compare function should return "0", only if the
two input records are completely identical (not only the sort fields).
Maybe it would be best to append the input record number to the sort data and 
check it during compare, this would also give "DUPLICATES IN ORDER".

Hans-Martin Rasch