Very Computer

I have a requirement where i need to sort and merge 2 flat files on a
Dec Alpha unix server.
$ uname -a  gives
OSF1 hostname V4.0 564 Alpha

The files have approx. 50 million rows each, with rows of around 1000
bytes.
The sort is rather straight-forward, on 2 fixed-width fields in the
files. I have no idea how efficient unix sort will be on such a
sort/merge nor do i have the resources to test this with real data at
this point. I am not worried about the time it is going to take, but
more on whether unix sort can handle such a volume of data.
I also came across a 3rd party appl. SyncSort which i believe is
effiicient, but much more powerful than what i need, which is just a
simple sort. Is it worth investing money on SyncSort for such a simple
need?
Will unix sort work for me? Are there any freeware utilities available
for my need?

Thanks in advance for any advice.
Biju.

        ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/

Good luck.

        Neil

posted to comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.osf.osf1,comp.unix.shell:
 > I have a requirement where i need to sort and merge 2 flat files on a
 > Dec Alpha unix server.

Are the files presorted?

 > Will unix sort work for me? Are there any freeware utilities available
 > for my need?

Each vendor's sort(1) will probably be different. If you have the
source, look at the source. If not, you might want to try a version
for which you do get the source. GNU sort (part of the textutils
package; prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/textutils-*.tar.gz or a mirror close
to you) comes with source and has an option to merge presorted files
efficiently.

Hope this helps,

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Quite good.
I have sorted 800Mb data-sets before using just the
sort that is native to DEC. As the other poster pointed
out, it is only lack of disk space that will stop you, since
sort writes it's subsets to disk.

        -mouse

--
Tim Smithers.
DMouse Pty. Ltd.
ph: 0414 366 873 (Mobile)
ph: +61 2 9351 5698

( Perfection is a hobby many pursue,
         but few have a chance of success )

You should note the following lines from the Digital Unix sort man page:

 Lines longer than 1024 bytes are truncated by sort.  The maximum
number  of fields on a line is 10.

Bob
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