Hi i'm sorting 8GB text file but came up with this error for an investigation

/tmp/sortA3aLjF: No space left on device

is there anyway that sort won't use /tmp?

you can use -T to specify a location other than /tmp in which to place temp files.
Or you can split the file (with split), sort each part and then merge them with sort -m.
(c) http://programming.itags.org/unix-li...ramming/97384/

There are several options, but no matter which one(s) you choose, `sort` needs some space to work.

The -T option allows you to specify somewhere else besides /tmp for `sort` to put its stuff.

The -S option may allow you to tell `sort` to use more memory instead of disk space, though it may already use as much as it can finagle.

The --compress-program option, tells `sort` to compress its temp files using whatever compressor you tell it to use.


Sounds like you want the -T option most of all. Check the man page for more info on these.

thanks much