big sort

[lafourca@cs.usm.my (Mathieu Lafourcade)]

Hi all,

I have to sort a *really* big number of strings. I read these strings from
files and I want to produce a new file with the strings sorted (you know
something like some word processors can do). The number of strings is
several 10000s.

I tried with buffers (I am affraid that lists would be a real memory hog -
but I should confess that I didn't try). I use a dichotomy to insert a new
string. It is quite slow (Quadra 900) and it become slower and slower as
long I add new strings (this was expected but not to that extend).

Does anybody had faced this kind of problem ? any pointer would be appreciated.
Thank in advance
Mathieu

---
Mathieu Lafourcade
* UTMK (Unit Terjemahan Melalui Komputer) - USM (Universiti Sains Malaysia)
- 11800 PENANG - MALAYSIA - Tel: (60) 4 860 3002 - Fax: (60) 4 656 3244 -
lafourca@cs.usm.my
* GETA (Groupe d'Etude pour la Traduction Automatique) - IMAG (Institut de
Mathematiques Appliquees de Grenoble) - BP 53 38041 GRENOBLE CEDEX 9,
FRANCE - Tel : (33) 76 51 43 80 - Fax : (33) 76 51 44 05 -
mathieu.lafourcade@imag.fr