ACSORT version 0.10.K. Copyright Alan H. Clifford, 1996
Description
ACSORT is a program for sorting data files on the Psion 3A.
Features
- Sort on primary, secondary and tertiary fields.
- Sort on words within fields.
- Limit length of sort string
- Case sensitive, insensitive or "Folded" (ignore case and accents) options.
- Empty/non-empty field sort option
- "Empty fields at end" option.
- Supersort option (see below).
- Saves sets of sort parameters.
- It's slow.
- But it's free.
Supersort
Supersort allows fields to be marked in individual records in order to override the default sort position. For example, suppose the "name" field in your database contained records as follows:
Ben Clifford
Maurice Clifford
Rupert Clifford
Alan Clifford & Family
Margaret Clifford
A primary sort field of "last word in the name field" and a secondary sort using "first word in name field" would sort the database - except for one record. ACSORT can be forced to sort on "Clifford" by putting a soft hyphen (ctrl...hyphen) before the space preceding Clifford in the offending record.
Alan- Clifford & Family
The sort parameters would then be:
Primary sort: Name field, last word, one word, case insensitive, supersort on.
Secondary sort: Name field, first word, all words, case insensitive, supersort off.
To place the supersort character at the start of a field, just use a soft hyphen as the first character - a space is not required.
Note that in the data application's normal "find" mode, the supersort soft hyphens are not visible.
Installation
It is suggested that ACSORT10.OPA is placed in the \APP directory. Install the application from the system screen. A list of files in the \DAT directory will appear underneath the icon.
Files
ACSORT10.WRD documentation
ACSORT10.OPA The program
\DAT\ACSORT\*.SRT A file for each database in the \DAT directory containing the sort parameter sets.
\TEMP\TEMP.ODB A working file that is deleted when the application ends.
The *.srt files created by the version of ACSORT prior to ACSORT07 are not compatible with this version.
The first time this version is used, it adds an identifier to *.srt files created by versions 07, 08 and 09 (this is to facilitate automatic file conversion in later versions of the program).
Please note that this application can update all the records in a database and creates a (smaller) temporary file with the same number of records as the datafile. It is not flash friendly!
History
ACSORT10 Added multiple parameter setups.
Data files with fields longer than 255 characters are now sorted on the correct fields (however only the first 255 characters are significant for the sort).
Fixed a bug in using forced line feeds as white space
ACSORT09 Added option to sort on empty/non-empty fields.
Forced line feed is now white space when isolating words.
ACSORT08. "Folded" option added to case sensitivity.
Fixed a bug regarding 1 character fields in last field not being recognised.
To Do
- Increase sort fields to 5.
- Option to ignore words such as "the", "an", "a".
- Include the entire length of long fields in the sort.
- Reverse sort.
Disclaimer
Alan H Clifford provides this program "as is" and makes no representation or warranty that this software is fit for any particular purpose.
(.txt)