title: Cobol RELEASE statement?
body: <p>I am working on my first project with Cobol Sort VSAM files. I ran into a keyword RELEASE. </p>
  
  <p>The way the book read that I have is the "The release statement transfers records from the INPUT PROCEDURE to the input Phase of the sort operation.</p>
  
  <p>My Question is:  <strong>That takes what ever I have in my Sort-Rec (or whatever I called it) and sends it directly into the OUTPUT PROCEDURE part of my SORT?</strong></p>
  
  <p>Seems confusing to me here.</p>
  
  <p>Cobol Code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SORT SORT-FILE ASCENDING KEY SORT-PROVIDER       
    INPUT  PROCEDURE IS PROC-THE-REC  THRU PTR-X   
    OUTPUT PROCEDURE IS WRITE-THE-RPT THRU WTR-X.  
  
   MOVE CC-CERT-NO         TO SAVE-CERT-NO.         
   MOVE CC-CERT-STATUS     TO SAVE-CERT-STATUS.     
   MOVE CC-CERT-BEGIN-DATE TO SAVE-CERT-BEGIN-DATE. 
   MOVE CC-CERT-END-DATE   TO SAVE-CERT-END-DATE.   
   MOVE CC-CERT-FUNDING    TO SAVE-CERT-FUNDING.    
   MOVE CC-PROV-NUMB       TO SAVE-PROV-NUMB.       
   MOVE CC-PROV-RES-CNTY   TO SAVE-PROV-RES-CNTY.   
   MOVE CC-PROV-TYPE       TO SAVE-PROV-TYPE.       
   MOVE CC-WORKER-USERID   TO SAVE-WORKER-USERID.   
   MOVE CC-WORKER-NAME     TO SAVE-WORKER-NAME.     
  
   RELEASE SORT-REC.                                
  </code></pre>