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

[Rich Burridge]

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.