No magic from me..sorry :) Typical space vs speed problem. The faster (all in memory) based algorithms will eat up RAM; whilst slower (bubblesort, quicksort: even via temporary files if you need to) consume less memory but are slow. It's more of a question of striking the right balance of space use and speed attained. If we had any idea as to the sorting required, then perhaps someone could pull a rabbit out of a hat for this one--alas without knowing what SORT you need, no efficient sorting algorithm can be devised. Chris