bug#9780: sort -u throws out non-duplicates

[Jim Meyering]

Jim Meyering wrote:

> Jim Meyering wrote:
> ...
>> Here's a smaller test case that appears to be host/nproc-independent:
>> It should print two lines: 1, then 7.
>> Without this patch, it prints only "7".
>>
>>     (yes 7|head -11; echo 1)|sort --parallel=1 -S32b -u
>>
>> Of course, it needs more/better comments, NEWS and
>> tests -- and not just the one above, but also one that
>> demonstrates the need for the key* adjustments below.
>
> FYI, here's the required test:
>
>   (yes 7|head -10; echo 1)|sed 's/^/1 /'|sort -k2,2 --p=1 -S32b -u
>
> Without the if (key) { ... } part of my patch, it would fail.
> I had to tweak the number of '7's (s/11/10) in the input to make
> it trigger.

Hmm... The above is arch-specific.
It triggers the bug on i686, but not on x86_64.