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

[Bo Borgerson]

Paul Eggert wrote:
>>> address@hidden wrote:
>>>> 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.
> 
> I agree.  That's been on my to-do list for years.  (It shouldn't be
> that hard, if you ignore portability hassles.  :-)
> 

Hi Paul,

I've modified my local sort to parallelize large merges by dividing
inputs among a number of children whose outputs are merged by the parent.

This only benefits large bulk sorts indirectly by parallelizing the
merge of temp files, but it can still provide a performance improvement.

I suspect my implementation does ignore some portability hassles, but
only because I haven't encountered them yet. :)

Does this sound like a step in the right direction for sort?  If I were
to clean this up and submit it would you be willing to assess its
viability as a portable improvement?

Thanks,

Bo