Re: Sort Bug

[Paul Eggert]

Andreas Schwab <address@hidden> writes:

> > However, it's still worrisome that "sort -k 5" doesn't work as it should.
> 
> Note that the whitespace before the number is part of the sort key:

Good point.  I missed that.

> So if you have right aligned numbers in a field, -n gives the same result
> as without -n.

That is true in the C locale, but it's not true for other locales.
When he sorts these two lines:

-rw-r--r--    1 robertd  users        2446 Aug 14 13:32 foobar
-rw-r--r--    1 robertd  users         678 Jul 10 15:15 baz

using "sort -k 5", he is comparing the following two strings:

"        2446 Aug 14 13:32 foobar"
"         678 Jul 10 15:15 baz"

My guess is that he's using some locale other than "C".  In many
locales, digits have low priority in textual comparison, and since
"Aug" precedes "Jul" this comparison will result in "<", which isn't
what he wants.

If my guess is right, it's not a bug in "sort", as "sort" is operating
according to its specification.  He should be using "sort -k 5,5n".