what is the best method to sort strings in real time or off line ?

[Meir Yan]

Hello all
i have program that needs to collect strings from different kinds of resources.
now the strings can be duplicated and i need to sort them i wander what will be the best way
to do that or to divide the job to 2 phases in which first phase will collect the data without checking duplication
just write then to file and in the second phase i will use unix "sort -u" on the files and then the program will handle the
new information
or
do it all in one phase and every string will be kept into map and then every time the program collects new string it will check agents the map
to see if it already there .
in term of speed what will be the best solution ?
Thanks

[Campbell Ritchie]

Putting them into a Map or Set would work; there are Set implementations which sort automatically.