Re: [PATCH] add new sort option --xargs (-x)

[Jim Meyering]

"Bo Borgerson" <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 12:18 PM, Jim Meyering <address@hidden> wrote:
>>  I suppose you have a real application where this is useful?
>>  If so, please describe it -- motivation/justification helps ;-)
>
> Just a merge with a lot of source files.  It's the same motivation as
> the nmerge patch.  I've actually got another patch as well that I'll
> clean up and offer soon that allows a merge of > nmerge files to be
> divided among sub-processes whose output is then merged by the parent,
> which provides a performance benefit (if you've got the resources for
> it).  I've got yet another patch that adds an option to open
> compressed files through a decompression program, so I don't have to
> set up fifos for a merge of gzipped files.

Sounds interesting.
I suppose it can work with an arbitrary decompressor?

Note this relatively new option:

      --compress-program=PROG  compress temporaries with PROG;
                              decompress them with PROG -d