Re: Bug in 'sort': negative numbers in non-first key

[Andreas Schwab]

Simon Anders <address@hidden> writes:

> However, when two keys are present, this fails to work:
>
>   $ sort -g
>   [IN ] 5 2
>   [IN ] 5 -3
>   [OUT] 5 2
>   [OUT] 5 -3

You are selecting the whole line as the sort key, and -g then instructs
sort to extract the leading numerical prefix from it.  Since the lines
compare equal on the sort key they are sorted lexicographically as the
last resort.  If you want to sort numerically on each field on the line
you have to specify each sort key separately, like sort -g -k1,1 -k2,2.

Andreas.

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Andreas Schwab, SuSE Labs, address@hidden
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