HP 3000 Manual page 46

Forced Control Fields
You can force a character into your control field by using forced control. There are special considerations
you should keep in mind when you plan to use forced control fields.
• Only one character can be used in your forced control field.
• You can use either a conditional or an unconditional force.
• A force-all line must be preceded by one or more conditional force lines.
Conditional Force
A conditional force can be used only when a particular entry appears in the record. It allows you to change
that entry to an alternate value for sorting purposes only. For example, you might have records to sort,
each with a one-position control field. If that control field character were an A and you wished to change it
to a $ for sorting, you would use conditional force. XSORT would respond to your instructions in the
following way:
* Build a work record from the input record.
|------|---|------| |---|------|
Input | DATA | A | DATA | Work | A | DATA |
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