You probably do have enough memory to sort the file, but you need to be careful about how you handle it. Doing a Schwartzian transform on it like that is creating huge temporary copies, which is probably what's blowing through your memory. You might try something slower that uses less memory: 

  @lines = <INPUTFILE>;
  @lines =  sort { (split($a, /\t/))[2] <=> (split($b, /\t/))[2] } @li
+nes;

[download]

I believe the most recent Perls have a special in-place sort() optimization when you're sorting an array and assigning it back to itself. (UPDATE: Yup, it was added in v5.8.4)

-sam

In reply to Re: Sorting a (very) large file by samtregar
in thread Sorting a (very) large file by condar

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