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C00002 00002		SHORT WRITEUP FOR SSORT.DMP[1,3], THE VARIABLE-LENGTH STRING SORT/MERGE
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	SHORT WRITEUP FOR SSORT.DMP[1,3], THE VARIABLE-LENGTH STRING SORT/MERGE

COMMAND TO INVOKE THE PROGRAM IS R SSORT.
INPUT FILE SHOULDN'T HAVE SOS LINE NUMBERS NOR TV/E DIRECTORY, BUT IT MIGHT
WORK ANYWAY.  OUTPUT FILE WON'T OVERWRITE AN EXISTING FILE UNLESS YOU SAY YES.
A TEMPORARY FILE WILL BE CREATED AND DELETED, CALLED SOMETHING LIKE <JOBNUM>SORT.TMP

The file is assumed to be broken up into frames by a special delimeter
character, which may be any ASCII character you choose, except nulls which are
usually ignored.  There is a special feature called the "JMC" kludge which
allows two consecutive <crlf>'s rather than one <crlf> to be the delimiter,
thus allowing a blank line between paragraphs to be the "delimiter".

When you start up the program, it will type * and if you just type <crlf>
it will remind you of the command format and give you a list of switches.
The command format is <OUTPUT-FILE>←<INPUT-FILE><SWITCHES><CRLF>.
Switches are parsed from left to right, and the effect of the default
switches is to place those switches ahead of whatever switches you type.
Each of the /A /O /B switches overrides any previous delimiter specification
and also resets any /D or /S to the usual values (i.e. /D<nil> /S<delim>).
The /F and /R merely turn on switches to the program, the /D switch
appends to the list of /D characters, and the /S replaces the list of /S
characters.

/A<KH> and /O<OCTAL NUMBER> are used to specify the delimiter character, depending on
  whether you want to use the character itself or the octal value for it
  (note, for activation characters, you must use the /O form).

/B causes linefeed to be the delimiter, <cr> to be ignored but patched in
  when you are done, and the special double-occurrance flag to be turned on.

/F causes the program to assume the delimiters are at the front rather than
  the usual rear-end of each frame.  The major effect is at the start and
  end of the file where an extra blank frame or a lost frame might occur.

/R causes retention of any duplicate frames.  Normally, extra copies are
  purged.

/D<OCTAL NUMBER> causes that character to be invisible during input.  You
  may still resupply it upon output by /S.

/S<OCTAL NUMBER LIST> causes that string (up to 5 characters) to be used
  instead of your normal delimiter upon output.

If you find an error in this writeup, please add an addenda at the end
  of this file: