A new parameter for the IDXBUILD function of Proutil was added in Progress 9.1D07. This new parameter
-SG aims to optimize I/O operations at the disk drive layer. It determines the number of sort groups helping the rebuild utility to make efficient use of memory and disk in sorting indexes.
In prior versions of Progress only one file was used to perform all sort and merge operations during the IDXBUILD. Using the new -SG parameter individual files will be created up to the limit of -SG which is 64. If no value is defined for -SG the default of 48 files will be used to perform all sort and merge operations.
Example of new syntax:
proutil <database name> -C idxbuild -TB 31 -TM 32 -SG 24 -B 512
Based on this example the command will use 24 files to perform the idxbuild sorting and merging of the indices which are being rebuilt. If a significant amount of space (tables larger than 2 gigabyte in size) will be indexed then use a
multi-volume .srt file to define the locations disk space be used for sorting. There's no point in defining more srt files than sort-groups (-SG) as each SG uses only one sort file (1:1)
A large -SG value requires more memory allocation and more file handles. To determine the amount of memory (in kilobytes) needed for each index group, add 1 to the merge number (the merge number is the value assigned to
-TM) and multiply the sum by the speed sort block size (the speed sort block size is the value assigned to
-TB).
Beginning in 9.1D07 Index build supports
sort files larger than 2 gigabyte if the operating system and file system are also configured to support large files.
When Progress uses sort files, the naming convention of the files are:
saa - szz
