What is the best, most efficient way of alphabetically sorting an ascii exended memory file on the HP-41?

Have you tried the SORTFL function of the CCD module?

Good tip. Don't have the CCD (waiting for it). I would however need a routine that doesn't use functions outside a standard HP-41CX (to make my upcomming PDA program usable for most people).

It seems the SORTFL function only sort data registers in XM.

That's right, SORTFL can only deal w/ data files (or matrix files if you've changed its file type previously). ASCII files are trickier in that each record can have multiple "registers" (7-words each), thus the file type change trick won't work in this case.

No substitute to plain old RPN programming in this case, or so it looks.

Best,

ÁM

Excuse my ignorance: Matrix files, what's that?

Geir Isene posted:
"Excuse my ignorance: Matrix files, what's that? "

They're files created by the Advantage ROM, which can directly create and use matrices stored in extended memory. This way you use no numeric registers at all to store matrices, greatly simplifying most matricial programs.

In some cases your program can run even using no numeric registers at all (and no 'synthetic' registers M,N, etc., either), this is, even with SIZE 000. See my 62-line, SIZE 000 Nth-degree Polynomial Fit program featured in my Datafile article Long Live the Advantage ROM !

Here we go (sorts only ascii files with records of max 24 characters - that's all I need for the "HP-41: The Reminder"-program):

001 *LBL "FLSORT"

002  LBL 01

003  0

004  SEEKPT

005  SF 25

006  GETREC

007  SF 05

008  FC? 25

009  GTO 03

010  SF 25

011  LBL 02

012  ASTO 05

013  GETREC

014  FC? 25

015  GTO 03

016  5

017  ENTER

018  ASTO X

019  X>NN?

020  GTO 02

021  CF 05

022  DELREC

023  RCLPT

024  1

025  -

026  SEEKPT

027  INSREC

028  1

029  +

030  SEEKPT

031  GTO 02

032  LBL 03

033  FC?C 05

034  GTO 01

035  CLA

036  CLST

037  SEEKPT

038  END

Edited: 4 Feb 2006, 3:02 a.m.