Why the Sorter transformation is an active transformation?

Actually the Sorter transformation helps to sort the data in ascending or descending order. And hence the number of input rows to the Sorter transformation remains the same as the output rows.

But the Sorter transformation has an option "Distinct", using this option we can remove duplicate records. The number of records can changed, if the source contains duplicate rows. So the Sorter transformation is an active transformation.

Sorter transformation

Sorter transformation is a connected and an active transformation

The Sorter transformation allows us to sort data in ascending or descending order according to a specified sort key.

We can also configure the Sorter transformation for case-sensitive sorting, and specify whether the output rows should be distinct.

When we create a Sorter transformation in a mapping, we specify one or more ports as a sort key and configure each sort key port to sort in ascending or descending order. We also configure sort criteria the PowerCenter Server applies to all sort key ports and the system resources it allocates to perform the sort operation.

The Sorter transformation contains only input/output ports. All data passing through the Sorter transformation is sorted according to a sort key. The sort key is one or more ports that we want to use as the sort criteria.