bug#12019: join command - wrong column moved to start of line with

[Pádraig Brady]

On 07/22/2012 12:22 AM, Alan Curry wrote:
> Eric Blake writes:
>>
>> On 07/21/2012 12:20 PM, Jean-Pierre Tosoni wrote:
>>> Hello Maintainer,
>>> =20
>>> I am using join v8.5 from debian squeeze.
>>> =20
>>
>>> now, the command:
>>>    join   -v 2   -1 2   -2 3   a   b
>>> produces
>>> =3D=3D=3D=3D wrong output =3D=3D=3D=3D
>>> zzz222 zzz111 keyZ zzz333
>>
>> I tried reproducing this with coreutils 8.17:
>>
>> $ cat a b
>> axx111 keyX axx222
>> ayy111 keyY ayy222
>> xxx111 xxx222 keyX xxx333
>> zzz111 zzz222 keyZ zzz333
>> $ join -v2 -1 2 -2 3 a b
>> keyZ zzz111 zzz222 zzz333
>>
>> but I get the expected order.  I don't see a specific mention of a fix
>> for this in NEWS, so I have to wonder if this might be a bug in a
>> debian-specific patch.  Can you do some more investigating, such as
>> compiling upstream coreutils to see if the problem still persists for you=
>> ?
> 
> It's not a Debian-specific problem. I can reproduce the bug with unaltered
> coreutils 8.9. It was apparently fixed by accident as a side effect of some
> other work on the join program.
> 
> commit d4db0cb1827730ed5536c12c0ebd024283b3a4db
> Author: Pádraig Brady <address@hidden>
> Date:   Wed Jan 5 11:52:54 2011 +0000
> 
>     join: add -o 'auto' to output a constant number of fields per line
> 
> d4db0cb1827730ed5536c12c0ebd024283b3a4db can be cherry-picked and applied to
> older coreutils to fix the bug. I tested this with upstream 8.9 and Debian's
> 8.5, both applied with fuzz but worked correctly.
> 

Thanks for looking into that Alan, and thanks for reporting this Jean-Pierre.
I've installed the attached to document the fix and add a test.

cheers,
Pádraig.

join-v2-test.diff
Description: Text document