Actually, you still have two arrays in memory. print for (sort @ary); creates a new array to hold the results of the sort, and can't throw out the value of @ary (until after the script ends), because the variable @ary is still in scope. @ary=sort @ary doesn't have this problem, in theory, but up to somewhen in the 5.8.x series (5.8.2, IIRC), it created a temporary array anyway.

In any case, yes, native sort is probably faster then perl sort for this.

In reply to Re^2: How to sort a large flat file 90mb with PERL-- various ways/tradeoffs/watchouts by theorbtwo
in thread How to sort a large flat file 90mb with PERL-- various ways/tradeoffs/watchouts by maxon11

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.