External Sorting
November 20, 2015
Sorting the lines of a file that fits in memory is a simple matter of loading the file and calling the sort function. When the file doesn’t fit in memory, however, it must be sorted in pieces, then combined into a single output, which is harder.
Your task is to write a program that sorts the lines of a file that is too large to fit into memory into ascending ascii order. When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.
Programming Praxis 