specifies that two
or more tasks are likely to be sharing the data in buffers. If SORTSHRB
is in effect, the host sort interface cannot modify data in buffers
but must move the data first. Moving the data before modifying it
could have a severe performance impact, especially for large sorts.
SORTSHRB is the default
value for the windowing environment, interactive line mode, and noninteractive
mode, where it is quite likely that multiple tasks use the same data.
NOSORTSHRB
specifies that no tasks
share the data in buffers. If NOSORTSHRB is in effect, the host sort
interface can modify data in buffers. NOSORTSHRB is the default value
for batch mode because it is unlikely that buffers are shared during
batch jobs, where larger sorts are usually run. If not sharing buffers
between tasks is not suitable for your batch environment, be sure
to specify SORTSHRB.
Details
SAS data sets can be
opened for input by more than one SAS task (or window). When this
happens, the buffers into which the data is read can be shared between
the tasks. Because the host sort interface needs to modify the data
before passing it to the host sort utility, and by default does this
directly to the data in the buffers, data can be corrupted if more
than one task is using the data in the buffers.