# determine whether it's worthwhile to add a --line-length=N option to sort. # Copyright (C) 1997 Free Software Foundation, Inc. # This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by # the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or # (at your option) any later version. # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the # GNU General Public License for more details. # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License # along with this program. If not, see . # Add the option and perform this test: # # Test method: # ============== n_bytes=10000000 time=/bin/time for line_len in 80 200 400 800 3000; do echo "line length: $line_len" write-file-of-size --bytes=$n_bytes --line-length=$line_len > in # sort a file with $n-char lines using the default of N=30 $time sort in > x # sort the same file with --line-length=$n SORT_INITIAL_LINE_LENGTH=`expr $line_len + 1` $time sort in > x echo # compare run times done # do this on at least SunOS, Linux, Solaris # RESULTS: # Solaris5.5.1, x86 dual PPro/200: none # Linux 3.0.29 x86 P/100: 5-6% improvement for 80, 200, 400, # but 1-2% penalty for 800 and 3000