sort 2.0e possible problem

[Greg Rodgers]

Hello,

I think that I have a unique situation and possibly a bug concerning the
sort 2.0e written by Mike Haetel and distributed with Redhat 7.0.  Sorting
a 899MB text zone file finished easily in around 45 minutes on a RedHat 6.2
system using the sort 2.0a utility. On a much larger system running sort
2.0e,
it never finishes, the process ran for a 24 hour period before being
stopped.

Here are the details.

Sort string being used:   "sort -b FILE1 -o FILE2"

System that sorts 899MB successfully successfully:

Single Processor PIII 533
512 MB RAM
RedHat Linux 6.2
sort 2.0a

System that never finishes sort:

Dual SMP PIII 800 Processors
1 Gig RAM
RedHat Linux 7.0
sort 2.0e

I copied the old sort 2.0a executable to the larger system, and it
completed the sort in 45 minutes!
I also notice when watching a "top" that the sort load jumps from processor
to processor with the
new sort much more than the previous 2.0a version

Thanks for all the good work and time you guys spend.

Greg Rodgers
IBM Global Services
Network Support Team
(859)243-4533  T/L 545-4533