Re: Multi-threading in sort(or core-utils)

[Bo Borgerson]

address@hidden wrote:
> Hello
> Few minutes ago i used sort -u for sorting big file(236 Mb). I have 2 core 
> cpu(core 2 duo), but i found that sort use only one cpu(work in one thread). 
> I think it is good idea to make option(or by default) for sorting in threads 
> to increase performance on systems that might execute more than one thread in 
> parallel.
>    Klimentov Konstantin.

Hi,

If you're using a shell that supports process substitution you could try
splitting your file in half and putting the bulk sorts of each half as
inputs to a merge:

So if you were doing:

$ sort bigfile

You could do:

$ sort -m <(sort bigfile.firsthalf) <(sort bigfile.secondhalf)

Bo