Re: Sort -V strange result

[Pádraig Brady]

On 07/01/17 11:40, Hadrien Lacour wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> printf '%s\n' '1x .txt' '1 .txt' | LC_ALL=C sort -V
> gives me
> 1x .txt
> 1 .txt
> 
> but in ascii, space is less than any letter ('x' in this case), so what's the
> reason behind this result?

Well the input to `sort --version` is a bit constrained.
The algorithm is described at:
https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#s-f-Version
which says the input should only contain alphanumerics.

Specifically, '1x' and '1 ' are compared as versions here,
and the (non-alpha) space is sorted after the (alpha) 'x' as per:
https://github.com/coreutils/gnulib/blob/7d75021/lib/filevercmp.c#L59-L71

cheers,
Pádraig