On Sun, 2007-12-02 at 20:26 -0500, Edward Allcutt wrote:
> Adding --buffer-size=700M (or thereabouts) may help as then sort won't
> have to keep dynamically adding more memory.
> 
> I'm not sure which algorithm sort uses by default, but I wouldn't be
> surprised if it were something reasonable like qsort(3).
From the looking at the source, three things become apparent:
a) Linus wasn't kidding when he recommended printing out and burning the
GNU coding standards, especially the section on indentation.
b) It uses some odd variant of merge sort.
c) It's O(1.5N) in space.

-- 
Edward Allcutt <[log in to unmask]>