Re: problem with command sort after uniq -c

[Bob Proulx]

Bauke Jan Douma wrote:
> What might have been the case here, and which is a
> situation that I find myself in sometimes, is this:
> you want to do 'filter1 FILE | filter2'
> (or 'filter1 <FILE | filter2').  Somehow the output
> isn't what's to be expected.  You investigate, and
> part of that is temporarily substituting filter1 for
> plain cat and the command becomes 'cat FILE | filter2'.
> 
> Most of the time this is on the command-line.

On your own command line is fine.  It is your command line.  No one
else would ever see it.

The objections come in when people write these into scripts and into
test cases and share these around to other people.  Many people have a
belief that cat into a pipe is the only way to do it.  I have seen
hundreds of lines written this way in a single script!  It is a
misunderstanding.

Educating users to improve their programming abilities is just one of
the many burdens that must be endured, or else endure the endless
burden of even more programs written poorly with these misconceptions.

Bob