Re: sort: mkstemp() runs out letters for temporary files

[Jim Meyering]

Thanks for that report, Bob!
I've added an autoconf run-test to work around that limitation.

Bob Proulx <address@hidden> wrote:
> I have run into a problem with sort not related to the collating
> sequence.  :-) It turns out I found two things.  This is the first
> part.  Please fasten your seatbelt and hang on, I have a long message.
> Sorry about that but I had a lot to say.  Please trim appropriately
> for any replies.
>
> While sorting a moderately big file on HP-UX 10.20 of around 200MB,
> the GNU textutils-2.0.14 sort needed to create temporary files for
> later merging.  The program died with a rather confusing error message
> to the user.  Note that '{' follows 'z'.
>
>   /tmp/sort{12345: No such file or directory
>
> In sort.c it uses create_temp_file() it sets up a temp_dir[] and then
> adds /sortXXXXXX to it in traditional fashion to yield /tmp/sortXXXXXX
> for mkstemp("/tmp/sortXXXXXX").  All fine.  More or less.