Sort software

[PhilClark]

Greetings, I am completely new here.   First a moan - the CAPTCHA verification system used by this site is discriminatory against people like me who are visually disabled - why is it allowed?

OK, my software problem.

I am looking for an equivalent, preferably free, for RPSORT.COM which will work with 64-bit Windows 7 machines.   I know that Windows supplies SORT.EXE but the problem with this is that is extremely limited in how you specify the sort fields: apparently you can only specify the start point of *one* frield and not the length of that field.   For the databases which I have been generating (all pure text) for more than 22 years I need to be able to sort on two fields, with the length for each field being specified.   For example:

RPSORT STATIONS.DAT /+3:5 /+19:14 STATIONS.SRT

Where the first sort field starts at character 3 and is 5 characters long and the second sort field starts at character 19 and it is 14 characters long.   The .DAT and .SRT files are the input and output files.

Can anyone assist by suggesting some software that I can use please?   Any help will be greatfully appreciated!

Many thanks.

[Salmon Trout]

Did you check the thread you started 4 days ago on Superuser? Someone has suggested CMSort.

[PhilClark]

I got a rather rude message to say that Super User wasn't there for software help, so I've not been back there.

I will have a look at CMSort - thank you.

Have now checked out CMSort ..... it looks to be for 32-bit machines, not 64-bit.

[Salmon Trout]

Your Super User question got put on hold on 14 Sep at 13:05 but someone had already put in the CMsort recommendation at 12:20

It seems that RPSort.com was a third-party utility for 16-bit MS-DOS written by Robert Pirko, who passed away in 1992.

GNU Sort, a Windows port of the Unix/Linux sort utility may be all you need. There are a ton of "external sort" utilities. A random example is Sandokan. This page...

http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/4268287/Re-A-new-free-open-source-external-sorter-written.aspx

... contains a thread by its author comparing (for speed) Windows Sort, Sandokan, GNU Sort and RPSORT. (RPSORT, which is written in assembler, won the race, but that may not be relevant.)

It links to a helpful ZIP package containing all three non-Windows utilities (source and executables), plus a comparison test batch, and some documentation. Maybe you will get what you want out of this.

www.sanmayce.com/Downloads/Sandokan_vs_Windows-sort_vs_GNU-sort_vs_DOS-RPSORT.zip

[Salmon Trout]

Have now checked out CMSort ..... it looks to be for 32-bit machines, not 64-bit.

Backwards compatibilty:
64 bit -> 32 bit yes
64 bit -> 16 bit no
32 bit -> 16 bit yes

You can run Windows 32 bit software seamlessly on all 64 bit Windows versions*. Google WOW64 to read about this. The problem you faced was that 64 bit systems will not run MS-DOS 16 bit software such as RPSort.com.

*Check out your Program Files (x86) folder. It is full of 32 bit software.

[PhilClark]

Thank you for your messages - it seems I can't "thank you" again for two hours!!!

A non-software problem is that I am visually disabled and I have a problem reading web sites which are badly-designed: perfection is jet-black text against a white background!   So doing lots of searching can take me a few days whereas someone else could do it in an hour or less.

In any case, I had already sent an e-mail to the CMSORT author to check about 64-bit compatibility: too soon for a reply of course, especially on a Sunday.   But fingers crossed that it will work.

I will now start to explore the links which you have given me - I just hope I can read the web sites!!!   Many thanks again for your help.

[Salmon Trout]

I had already sent an e-mail to the CMSORT author to check about 64-bit compatibility

From the CMSort readme.txt in the Zip archive:

In contrast to old 16-bit DOS applications, CMsort can be executed on both 32 and 64-bit Versions of Microsoft Windows.

[PhilClark]

Fingers crossed then and thank you once more.

[Salmon Trout]

Good luck!

[PhilClark]

Have now spent time testing the new CMSORT software and everything seems to be working perfectly.   So thank you for your assistance on this!