This specifies an argument file.
An argument file is a text file in which various option arguments of the bsort command are defined. An argument file is used to make a separate specification for a particular argument and when a command character string is longer than the maximum length allowed in the operating system.
The argument file must contain only bsort command option information. Individual options in the argument file can span more than one line, but must not include a line break. Argument file options cannot be specified in the argument file.
If other options are specified along with the argument file option, the option arguments specified in the argument file are interpreted as if they were inserted at the location of the argument file option. You can specify more than one argument file option.
Format
-a argfileargfile
This specifies the argument file name.
If the argument file name contains spaces, it must be specified in double quotation marks (" ").
Example
The following shows an example of an argument file.
-s -z200 -32.12pdla,25.4fbia/n -p 25.4fbi.ge.d35/n -o sortout/n sortin/n (Note)
NOTE
/n sign indicates the carriage return and line feed code sequence <CR><LF>.
Information
Assuming that the argument file (argfile) has the following content:
-s -z100
If
bsort sortin -a argfile -o sortout
is specified, it is the same as specifying
bsort sortin -s -z100 -o sortout
Similarly, if
bsort sortin -z70 -a argfile -o sortout
is specified, it is the same as specifying
bsort sortin -z70 -s -z100 -o sortout
In the latter case, the effect is that the -z option is specified twice. As the -z option can only be specified once, an error occurs.