Sorting 1 million 8-decimal-digit numbers with 1 MB of RAM

Question

I have a computer with 1 MB of RAM and no other local storage. I must use it to accept 1 million 8-digit decimal numbers over a TCP connection, sort them, and then send the

Answer 1

We could play with the networking stack to send the numbers in sorted order before we have all the numbers. If you send 1M of data, TCP/IP will break it into 1500 byte packets and stream them in order to the target. Each packet will be given a sequence number.

We can do this by hand. Just before we fill our RAM we can sort what we have and send the list to our target but leave holes in our sequence around each number. Then process the 2nd 1/2 of the numbers the same way using those holes in the sequence.

The networking stack on the far end will assemble the resulting data stream in order of sequence before handing it up to the application.

It's using the network to perform a merge sort. This is a total hack, but I was inspired by the other networking hack listed previously.