By R. L. McAllester
Communications of the ACM,
March 1964,
Vol. 7 No. 3, Pages 158-159
10.1145/363958.363985
Comments
A variation of the polyphase merge technique of sorting is described which permits one tape at a time to be rewound while the merge is continued on the remaining tapes. The result is the overlapping of a major portion of the rewind time.
The technique should be considered whenever a sort is written to operate on five or more tapes that cannot be read backwards. The savings of the overlap method appear to increase as the number of available tapes is increased.
The full text of this article is premium content
No entries found
Log in to Read the Full Article
Need Access?
Please select one of the options below for access to premium content and features.
Create a Web Account
If you are already an ACM member, Communications subscriber, or Digital Library subscriber, please set up a web account to access premium content on this site.
Join the ACM
Become a member to take full advantage of ACM's outstanding computing information resources, networking opportunities, and other benefits.
Subscribe to Communications of the ACM Magazine
Get full access to 50+ years of CACM content and receive the print version of the magazine monthly.
Purchase the Article
Non-members can purchase this article or a copy of the magazine in which it appears.
