Subject: bug#11433: Bug in GNU sort with large value for the -S option

From: Rich Burridge <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 May 2012 09:01:25 -0700

GNU sort doesn't like a really large value for the -S option.

To recreate:

First create a 5GB file of random data.

   $ /usr/bin/dd if=/dev/urandom of=input bs=1048576 count=5000

You can successfully sort it with:

   $ export LC_ALL='C'
   $ /usr/bin/sort input >output

But if you add a large -S option, you get:

   $ export LC_ALL='C'
   $ /usr/bin/sort -S 4G <input >output
   /usr/bin/sort: -S argument `4G' too large

Reproduced with:
   sort version 8.13 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
   sort version 8.16 on Solaris 11

Thanks.