Sort Rules

Feature definition lines are automatically sorted when they are read from the license file. The default sorting rules are as follows:

1.

License file. Automatic sorting does not occur across files in a license search path.

2.

Feature name.

3.

VENDOR_STRING entry.

4.

FEATURE before INCREMENT.

5.

Uncounted before counted.

6.

Version, earlier versions before later versions.

7.

Issued date, in reverse order, newest first. The date is taken from ISSUED= or START=.

8.

Original order is otherwise maintained.

You can override the automatic ordering by adding the sort attribute for each FEATURE and INCREMENT line. The value defined for the sort attribute identifies the relative position of that feature in the sort order. For example, features with a sort value of 25 will be sorted before those with a sort value of 50. Unless explicitly defined, the sort value for each feature is set to 100. All lines with the same number are sorted as they appear in the file. The value range for the sort attribute is 0 through 255. If you specify a value higher than 255, the encryption process converts it to 255.

Overriding the sort order might be useful to change the order in which licenses are consumed. Consider the following example: A company has multiple pools of licenses with different expiration dates. The company wants their users to first consume the licenses from the pool that expire first. To achieve this, the license administrator can add the sort=1 keyword to the feature line that expires first.