Thanks for following up on this. I now see the problem; it's not a
bug in "sort" after all. Your output was sorted as you desired until
the numbers got too wide for their columns. Thus, for example, with
this input:
-rw-r--r-- 1 robertd users 2587029 Aug 27 11:40 printfbin270803.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 robertd users 1127596442 Oct 29 11:03 tms_mp2.zip
-rw-r----- 1 robertd users 15035855 Aug 27 11:16 backuptest270803.gz
the three keys are as follows:
" 2587029 Aug 27 11:40 printfbin270803.gz"
" 1127596442 Oct 29 11:03 tms_mp2.zip"
" 15035855 Aug 27 11:16 backuptest270803.gz"
These lines are sorted correctly, as
" 2" precedes
" 11" which in turn precedes
" 15" in a lexicographic sort.
Sorry about my confusion. Anyway, a numeric sort ("sort -k 5n")
should do what you originally wanted.
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