The user-supplied data file is divided into several sections. Each section is identified by an associated starword.

The recognised starwords are:

and should appear in the data file in the above order. Items in the data file are in free format separated by spaces. Each starword section is described in a following chapter.

All starwords, commands and other sort language statements are expected on a new line. Any statement which exceeds a single line may just be continued on the following line. There are no line continuation symbols.

Names used may contain one or two components depending on whether the quantity is a group name or not. Each component must commence with an alphabetic character and may be up to 16 characters in length. Only alphanumeric and underscore "_" characters are allowed.

All names used for single and group parameters, sortwords, items, arrays, maps, parameter lists and routine arguments must be unique, e.g. a parameter list may not have the same name as a sortword.

Numerical values should be specified as appropriate to the command:

Reserved words consist of all keywords and maths function names and cannot be used as other sort program names. See Appendix A for a list of all reserved words.

Comments may be placed anywhere in the text. Any text following an exclamation mark ! or double forward slash // up to end-of-line is ignored by the setup procedure.