The CHAR-ASCII instruction tells AcuSort that the data should be interpreted as ASCII characters. SIGN-ASCII instructs AcuSort to use the ASCII sign convention. These keywords mirror the operation of the CHAR-EBCDIC and SIGN-EBCDIC keywords and enable you to switch back and forth between the different modes. This means you can put multiple SORT/MERGE operations in a single take file, which use different character sets or sign modes. AcuSort's defaults are CHAR-ASCII and SIGN-ASCII mode.