GNU bug report logs - #11433
Bug in GNU sort with large value for the -S option

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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: Rich Burridge <rich.burridge <at> oracle.com>

Date: Tue, 8 May 2012 16:20:02 UTC

Severity: normal

Tags: notabug

Done: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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From: Rich Burridge <rich.burridge <at> oracle.com>
To: 11433 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#11433: Bug in GNU sort with large value for the -S option
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.
This bug report was last modified 13 years and 70 days ago.

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