I am getting the warning as "Warning: the specified memory size is being reduced to the available paging memory".The paging file size of this system is set to 12284 MB.(Even when I run this on w2k8 64 bit 12GB RAM system

That is just a warning, it doesn't prevent the sort from working. I'm not sure if it is a bug in the way the program determines the amount of memory available; or if the "paging memory" it talks of is some specialised subset of the available memory.

Either way, when you get that warning, it means the program will use the maximum amount it thinks it can use.

The output of sort which you have mentioned and output of my code differs ...

That's unfortunate. sort.exe doesn't have a way to restrict the key length.

The next fastest solution would be to download GNU CoreUtils and either put the entire package in your path, or just the sort.exe (and it dependancies:  libintl3.dll & libiconv2.dll somewhere in your path and use the command:

sort -S 3G -k 1,26 dataf -o dataf.sorted

[download]

(Note:This sort utility is a pre-compiled 32-bit binary, so 3 GB is the maximum it can handle)

The sort will be substantially slower than with the windows supplied sort, but should be quicker than your perl script.

With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'
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The start of some sanity?

In reply to Re^5: external sort performance improved? by BrowserUk
in thread external sort performance improved? by rkshyam

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