Well now that I am sure what you mean. Just generate a random number from 1
or zero to the number of records, check that you have not gotten it before,
read that record and write it out serially to another file. Shouldn't take
too long.

James

-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Porter, Allen H
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2000 6:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Randomizing large ASCII files


You understand perfectly.  Programmatically, you would assign a random value
to each record then sort them on the random value.  I'm just looking for a
faster way to do it.  We have done tests and found the MPE Sort utility to
be faster than the sort function that comes with the data processing package
we use.  I'm hoping that the same might hold for randomizing.

Allen Porter
Programmer II
Maritz Marketing Research INC

636.827.6833
[log in to unmask]

> ----------
> From:         James Clark,Florida[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     James Clark,Florida
> Sent:         Thursday, January 13, 2000 5:01 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Randomizing large ASCII files
>
> Sorry for my ignorance. Am I to understand that you have a file of
> 1,000,000
> records which are in order and you want a way to mix them up?
>
> James
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of Porter, Allen H
> Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2000 5:00 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Randomizing large ASCII files
>
>
> I have a very large ASCII file (270 bytes per record with approx.
> 1,000,000
> records) that needs to be randomized.  The current program we are using
> takes a couple of hours to run.  Does anyone have a faster method?  I was
> hoping TurboSort could randomize but I can't find anything in the
> documentation.
> Allen Porter
> Programmer II
> Maritz Marketing Research INC
>
> 636.827.6833
> [log in to unmask]
>