Shell Programming and Scripting

I don't know that the sort command has any theoretical limit to the file size. It more likely would depend on the maximum size file your system can create (assuming you aren't just writing the results to standard output). Try 'ulimit' to determine the maximum file size. If it's unlimited, then it's a matter of disk space and cpu time.

Like Glen I believe sort is limited to what the OS supports, ie., largefiles > 2.4GB or no largefiles.

sort does require temporary file space - usually in either /var/tmp or /tmp. If there is not enough free space - about equal to the size of the input file - sort may fail.
sort will also fail with the -c or -m option when you have really long recordlengths in an input file on a merge-only operation.

What error are you getting?

Don't know what your getting for an error, but most likely if you're experiencing a problem with a large file you may need to select a filesystem with more disk space for your sortwork (Temp) space. Do a df to determine where you have space for sortwork, then use the -T option to specify the temp directory.
e.g. sort -k1 -T /data/work mi_grande_file.txt >mi_grande_file.txt.srtd

Thanks every body,
When I specified the Temp directory, the command work fine on files that was results in error before.