Re: sorting with -u and -k

[Joost Helberg]

Paul,

thanks for replying so swiftly. 

Your patch suggests that this behaviour of only inspecting the given
keys is intentional? 
I would suggest removing the reference to the equivalence of -u and
uniq althogether then.

Regards,

Joost

>>>>> "Paul" == Paul Eggert <address@hidden> writes:
 > Subject: Re: sorting with -u and -k
 > From: Paul Eggert <address@hidden>
 > To: Joost Helberg <address@hidden>
 > Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden
 > Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:32:16 -0800

 > Joost Helberg <address@hidden> writes:

 >> given options '-t: -k2 -k3' the following lines compare equal:
 >> 
 >> foo:1:2
 >> oof:1:2
 >> 
 >> hence, the oof-line doesn't appear in case -u was used.
 >> 
 >> This strikes me as a surprise, I expected that these two lines would
 >> compare as non-equal. I cannot find any explicit reference in the
 >> manual indicating this as correct behaviour (only one example is
 >> given: -n).

 > Thanks for mentioning this.  Here's a proposed fix to the manual
 > to explain this more carefully.

 > 2008-01-24  Paul Eggert  <address@hidden>

 >      * coreutils.texi (sort invocation): -u inspects only specified fields.
 >      Problem reported by Joost Helberg.

 > diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
 > index 3785eae..3741e5d 100644
 > --- a/doc/coreutils.texi
 > +++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
 > @@ -3793,6 +3793,8 @@ this equivalence does not extend to arbitrary 
 > @command{sort} options.
 >  For example, @code{sort -n -u} inspects only the value of the initial
 >  numeric string when checking for uniqueness, whereas @code{sort -n |
 >  uniq} inspects the entire line.  @xref{uniq invocation}.
 > +Similarly, @code{sort -k 4,4 -u} inspects only the fourth field when
 > +determining whether two lines differ.

 >  @item -z
 >  @itemx --zero-terminated


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