RE: Bug in the sort utility

[Warner Mike - miwarn]

I should have included some information about the system that we are
using:

 

address@hidden:/home/miwarn> uname -a

Linux avalanche.corp.acxiom.net 2.6.9-89.0.11.ELlargesmp #1 SMP Mon Aug
31 11:05:24 EDT 2009 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

address@hidden:/home/miwarn> more /etc/redhat-release

Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 8)

address@hidden:/home/miwarn>

 

If there is any additional information that I can provide, please let me
know.

 

Thank you!

 

________________________________

From: Warner Mike - miwarn 
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 4:39 PM
To: 'address@hidden'
Subject: Bug in the sort utility

 

We came across something that appears to be a bug as opposed to an
unintended design feature.

 

If you consider the following source file (named sort.txt in my
example):

 

M=L

MIK

M-

M-K

M=

MIK

M-A

 

 

address@hidden:/home/miwarn> sort sort.txt

M=

M-

M-A

MIK

MIK

M-K

M=L

address@hidden:/home/miwarn>

 

I am expecting the output to come out in ASCII sorted order.  If the
first 2 rows were correctly ordered, the last row (M=L) should actually
be the second row which would be followed by all of the (M-, M-A, M-K
rows).  The reason it appears to be a bug is because it is ignoring
these printable ASCII characters when I don't think it should be.  The
whole part about some entries with a dash or an equal sign coming before
the entries with an I in the second character and some coming after is
also quite strange.

 

Is this a bug that has been reported and corrected already?

 

 

Michael D. Warner | Solution/Software Developer SD

Acxiom Financial Services   

 

00-1-309-689-1470 home
Peoria, IL | U.S.A. | www.acxiom.com

 

 

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