From: Miroslaw Niegowski <trednu@...>
Date: 2009-03-11T20:33:41+09:00
Subject: sorting question

Hi,
I have following log in simple format:

-- START - DATE (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.sss)
<xml>
....
</xml>
-- END - DATE (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.sss)

-- START - DATE (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.sss)
<xml>
....
</xml>
-- END - DATE (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.sss)

-- START - DATE (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.sss)
<xml>
....
</xml>
-- END - DATE (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.sss)

-- START - DATE (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.sss)
<xml>
....
</xml>
-- END - DATE (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.sss)

What is the most efficient way to sort it in ruby by START DATE & TIME?
Log size is generally smaller than 1GB...
I was thinking of :
1) loading the file into memory
2) splitting into hash (date | xml)
3) sorting key values
4) output

Is there a better way to do this ? I'm mostly concerned with memory
consumption...