--- sort.c.orig	2003-09-05 13:50:32.000000000 -0700
+++ sort.c.dg	2004-06-28 23:06:56.000000000 -0700
@@ -1956,18 +1956,35 @@ merge (char **files, int nfiles, int max
   while (max_merge < nfiles)
     {
       FILE *tfp;
       int i, t = 0;
       char *temp;
-      for (i = 0; i < nfiles / NMERGE; ++i)
+      int nextmerge;
+      
+      /* If we have more than NMERGE files to merge then we should select
+         a balanced number of files to merge in each step.  Otherwise
+	 we could suffer the problem of having NMERGE huge files and a
+	 few small files -- which is very unbalanced.  */
+      if (nfiles > NMERGE)
 	{
-	  temp = create_temp_file (&tfp);
-	  mergefps (&files[i * NMERGE], NMERGE, tfp, temp);
-	  files[t++] = temp;
+	  int steps = (nfiles + NMERGE - 1) / NMERGE;
+	  int stepsize = nfiles / steps;
+	  for (i = 0; i < steps; ++i)
+	    {
+	      temp = create_temp_file (&tfp);
+	      mergefps (&files[i * stepsize], stepsize, tfp, temp);
+	      files[t++] = temp;
+	    }
+	  nextmerge = i * stepsize;
+        }
+      else
+	{
+	  nextmerge = 0;
 	}
+
       temp = create_temp_file (&tfp);
-      mergefps (&files[i * NMERGE], nfiles % NMERGE, tfp, temp);
+      mergefps (&files[nextmerge], (nfiles - nextmerge), tfp, temp);
       files[t++] = temp;
       nfiles = t;
       if (nfiles == 1)
 	break;
     }