RE: Using SORT on Linux

[Oshea, Richard]

Bob,

Whitespace are spaces - checked that out first.

Just so you know - I found a way around the problem.
I made the primary part of the sort (first field) the same length - and the 
sort works correctly.

I suspect somewhere in the code, the first whitespace found sets the length for 
all elements in the sort -
 - or - the buffer being used is not reset before filling it with 
non-whitespace characters for sorting.

-
 
I'm running under the BASH shell.

Results for you on my environment -

log>sort --version
sort (coreutils) 4.5.3
Written by Mike Haertel and Paul Eggert.

Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
address@hidden:/app/home/tnsapps/TNSListener/log

log>uname -a
Linux nyl06a-7504 2.4.21-32.0.1.ELsmp #1 SMP Tue May 17 17:52:23 EDT 2005 i686 i
686 i386 GNU/Linux
address@hidden:/app/home/tnsapps/TNSListener/log

log>locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=
address@hidden:/app/home/tnsapps/TNSListener/log


- Remember, I had set the LC_ALL=C and it did not change the sort sequence.

If there is a problem in the code, it should be fixed - but not to please me.
As I said, I found a way around it.

Thanks,

Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 1:37 AM
To: Oshea, Richard
Cc: 'address@hidden'
Subject: Re: Using SORT on Linux


Oshea, Richard wrote:
> Not sure if this is a bug or a problem with the way my environment
> it setup - or the way I'm using sort - But...  Given the following
> data in a file, the sort command does not produce the correct
> output.

Are you passing any options to sort?

> I have even tried setting the LC_ALL as suggested in the sort --help
> (set LC_ALL=C)

"set LC_ALL=C"?  What shell are you using?  Try this:

  env LC_ALL=C sort

> AG        1
> AG2       3
> AG2       2
> AG3       4
> AG        4
> AG3       3
> AG4       5
> AG4       6
> 
> The results are
> 
> AG        1
> AG2       2
> AG2       3
> AG3       3
> AG3       4
> AG        4
> AG4       5
> AG4       6

Check the whitespace characters.  Are there non-printable characters
there?

> I would expect the output to be more like ...
> 
> AG        1
> AG        4
> AG2       2
> AG2       3
> AG3       3
> AG3       4
> AG4       5
> AG4       6

That is the result I get on my machine when I test with your input.

What version of sort are you using?  What operating system are you
working on?  What locale are you using?

  sort --version
  uname -a
  locale

Bob

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