Re: [HACKERS] sorting big tables :(

On Sun, 17 May 1998, David Gould wrote:

> I think this is a bug. There is no reason to use more than a little bit over
> three times the input size for a sort. This is: input file, run files, output
> file. If we are not able to sort a 2 gig table on a 9 gig partition we need
> to fix it. I suspect we have a bug in the implementation, but perhaps we
> need to look at our choice of algorithm. In any case this problem should go
> on the todo list.

    Have to agree here...

    Micheal...if you were to dump that table into a text file, how big
would it turn out to be?  Much smaller then 2gig, no?  Then perform a Unix
sort on that, how long would that take?  Then reload the data...

    Needing more then 7gig to sort a 2gig table sounds slightly off to
me as well :(

Marc G. Fournier
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org