Re: Emacs bug #23794; sort-line behavior regressed from prior Emacs versions

[Robert Weiner]

On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 2:15 PM, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:

I don't think it's a bug, in the sense that the old behavior was
intended.  I think the old behavior was a side effect of the
implementation, so when the implementation changed, the behavior
changed with it.

If RMS confirms that is the case, then I will retract my request that this be a blocking bug for the next release but I have a feeling the old behavior was intended. 

IOW, I don't think it was ever the design goal to have sorting
disregard invisible text.

I think you are misstating what happens a bit or should use some other phrasing.  It is not that invisible text is ignored, it is simply that invisible line endings are ignored when computing lines and the text of invisible lines is paired with any prior visible line as part of it.  Thus, the text characters within the invisible part are still considered when sorting but they are not sorted separately from the visible parts.

Bob