Category : Utilities for DOS and Windows Machines
Archive   : QSORT403.ZIP
Filename : QS-HST.DOC

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Notes on Version 5.00 (Commercial)

* Another major redesign. All earlier versions of QSORT found
the sort keys in-place when comparing records. Version 5
extracts keys during pre-processing and builds a fixed-length
key block. This yields a major performance improvement,
particularly when using multiple keys. The down side is that
the length of the "sort record" is increased. If merge files
are created, they use more disk space. Of course, the key
block disappears during final output.
* Added several new key types not feasible without key extrac-
tion, among them numeric keys (ASCII), and three binary numeric
key types.
* Added a whole new program, dQSORT, to sort data bases (one beta
tester reported about 20% faster than Clipper). It will only
be available in the commercial package.

Notes on Version 4.03

* Some minor cosmetic changes in the help screen. Otherwise
identical to version 4.02.
* This product is now released as shareware.

Notes on Version 4.02 (Commercial)

* Corrected a bug which caused incorrect sorting of files of
delimited records.

Notes on Version 4.01 (Commercial)

* Corrected a minor bug in the handling of the delimiter
character in delimited field records.
* Moved all "natural language dependant" strings and messages to
a special include file to facilitate translation to other
languages.

Notes on Version 4.00 (Commercial)

* Massive rewrite of QSORT internal routines to enhance per-
formance, particularly when sorting large files. QSORT now
uses all of available memory as its sort buffer, so the more
memory available, the better it works. Tests on my machine in-
dicate a 2:1 performance improvement doing a simple sort of a
4.5 meg file with a 400K+ sort buffer available. One beta
tester showed a 6:1 performance improvement sorting a 100 meg
file!
* Added provisions to prevent merge file name collisions when
multiple copies of QSORT are run concurrently on a network.
* Added /N[] parameter for newline redefinition.
* Removed newline redefinition from /D parameter, and relaxed re-
quirements for specifying number of fields. If the delimiter
is not newline, need not be given, and QSORT will per-
mit a variable number of fields in each record.

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* Added @ parameter to permit QSORT parameters to
be stored in an external file, and used repeatedly.

Notes on Version 3.22

* Documentation changed to reflect new shareware policy, and to
point out the need to enclose the messages redirection para-
meter ("2>") in quotes for later DOS versions.
* No program changes.

Notes on Version 3.21

* FINALLY fixed the bug causing QSORT to not notice it had run
out or disk space! (Thanks to Andy Woolls for reporting the
problem still existed.)
* Added standard error redirection feature (see QSORT.PRN).
* Modified command line parameter parsing. You may now reliably
run parameters together (not recommended, but you can do it).
However, now a slant bar (/) may only be used as a tag charac-
ter in a /T parameter, or a delimiter or record terminator
character in a /D parameter if it is preceded by a back-slant
(\). Otherwise, a slant bar marks the beginning of a new
parameter. The caution on this subject which appeared in
3.20's notes has been removed, as it no longer applies.

Notes on Version 3.20

* This started out to be maintenance release 3.14, but so many
changes were made, it certainly warrants a minor release
number.
* Added a subparameter (V) to the /S parameter. /SV causes run-
ning status reports to be displayed on the console.

* Corrected a minor bug in the statistics display. When you sort
a file with more than 32767 records, the number of records re-
ported looked strange.
* Revised the method of displaying error messages, and made error
message text more or less consistent.
* Added a whole new section to the documentation dealing with
error messages and their causes.
* Revised the method of parsing the command line. Contrary to
the documentation, you may now run command line switches to-
gether. "/S/R/?/20:6/15:5" will do precisely what you would
expect.

Notes on Version 3.13

* This release cleans up the last (I hope) potential undetected
I/O errors.

Notes on Version 3.12

* A bug (an oversight, actually) has existed for some time which
caused QSORT to fail to recognize an "out of disk spate" condi-

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tion when writing temporary merge files. The situation is cor-
rected in this version.
* The QSTMP environment variable was documented in version 3.10,
but through another oversighe, not actually implimented 'till
now. The current version will search for environment variables
QSTMP, TMP and TEMP in that order, looking for a place to put
temporaries.

Notes on Version 3.11

* Rewrote many internal functions in assembly language.

Notes on Version 3.10

* Added support for delimited field records. A side benefit of
this feature is the ability to redefine the newline sequence
for this and other types of ASCII files.
* Improved output buffering.
* Converted all documentation to Microsoft Word.

Notes on Version 3.00

* Converted from Lattice C, version 3.1 to Microsoft C, version
4.0. This change alone resulted in about a 10 % improvement in
performance.
* Performed major redesign of QSORT's I/O, buffer handling and
internal data structures. This change resulted in an addi-
tional 60 % performance improvement. This improvement was mea-
sured by sorting the same 210K file:
QSORT 2.1 1:48
QSORT 3.00 0:42
* Dropped support for QSORTL (large data model).
* Removed the necessity for the /M parameter. QSORT will
now sort files with variable length records of any size, pro-
vided only that the two largest records will fit together in
the sort buffer. This imposes a record length constraint of
about 50K for the sum of these record lengths.
* Added the option of specifying the output file as a command
line argument. The following two commands are exactly equi-
valent:
QSORT OUTFILE and
QSORT INFILE OUTFILE
* Added support for the /? help parameter.
* Added the /S parameter to produce a "statistics" screen report
at the end of a QSORT run.
* Added support for the QSTMP and TMP environment variables to
specify a path for temporary merge files.
* QSORT documentation was largely rewritten.

Notes on Version 2.1

* Converted form Lattice C version 3.0 to version 3.1.
* Added /F parameter and support for fixed-length records.
Records may contain binary data, but keys must be ASCII.

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* Added several special-purpose record compare routines. QSORT
selects the most efficient one for a given sort, based upon the
combination parameters on the command line.

Notes on Version 2.0

* Converted from Lattice C, version 2.14 to version 3.0. This
change achieved about 15 % performance improvement.
* Began distributing both QSORT and QSORTL (large data model).
The latter shows performance gains on very large (> 750K)
files.
* Added /T[] parameter and support for multi-line logi-
cal records.

Notes on Version 1.2

* Added "lexical" ordering of key fields.

Notes on Version 1.1

* Added /M parameter to permit specifying maximum record
lengths in excess of the default 132 bytes.
* Corrected bug to permit element of key field specifier to
be optional, defaulting to column 1. Program now matches docu-
mentation.
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