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1986-07-29
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BB-SORT Documentation
========================
I wrote BB-Sort because the only sort routines that I had
available were either slow, or would not sort a file larger than 64K.
As long as I was at it, I decided to combine data sort, reverse data
sort, and alpha sort capabilities. BB-Sort spends most of its time
reading the file into memory, and after the sort, writing it back to
disk. I have tested it on a 168K file, and it sorted in less than 35
seconds. This is fast enough for me.
The speed comes because it does the sort in memory. The
limitation is system memory. It Will use as much memory as you have
available. I have tested it on files as large as 256k. It can
certainly sort files larger than that, but I figured that was as big
as I need worry about.
You can use it to do an alphasort on any text file. Just give it
the `/H' option to tell it to sort the header text, and the `/A'
option to tell it to do an alphasort.
Header Text
BB-Sort considers any line that as header text if it does not
contain a dash at column positions 26 & 29, and numbers at column
positions 25,27,30. These positions are standard in dBBS, RBBS, and
PC-Board systems. They are also the same column positions that DOS
uses when it gives a directory. Header Text is put at the top of the
file in the order that it is found. If you want BB-Sort to include
the header text in its sort, give it the `/H' option.
Caution
BB-Sort will not be able to read a line's date properly if the
line has any tab chars between the first column, and the date.
Enjoy!!
Daniel B. Doman
7-29-86