random writing access to a file in Python

[Claudio Grondi]

Paul Rubin wrote:
> Claudio Grondi <claudio.grondi at freenet.de> writes:
> 
>>The Windows XP SP 2 '/> sort' (sorting of four Gigs of 20 byte records
>>took 12 CPU and 18 usual hours) has, from what I could observe on the
>>task manager, done the job in only two runs of 'copying' :
> 
> 
> That is terrible; on a reasonably fast machine these days it should
> take just a few minutes.
Ok, I see - the misunderstanding is, that there were 4.294.967.296 
records each 20 bytes long, what makes the actual file 85.899.345.920 
bytes large (I just used 'Gigs' for telling the number of records, not 
the size of the file).
Still not acceptable sorting time?

Claudio Grondi