Christian wrote:
> I've got a question about sort. I've got a gentoo based system and I
> noticed that my usually command to sort IP addresses does not seem to work
> anymore.
> I know for sure that it doesn't work with 5.94 and 5.97.
Major changes in the coreutils 5.90 release. See the NEWS file for
all of the details.
> This is the command:
> sort -nt. +0 -1 +1 -2 +2 -3 +3 -4
Using +NUM -NUM is obsolescent usage. You need to start using the -k
NUM usage as required by POSIX conforming applications. The old form
has been deprecated for many years.
> and here is the error:
>
> sort: invalid option -- 1
> Try `sort --help' for more information.
Better yet would be to see the info documentation for significantly
more information.
info coreutils sort
On older systems, `sort' supports an obsolete origin-zero syntax
`+POS1 [-POS2]' for specifying sort keys. This obsolete behavior can
be enabled or disabled with the `_POSIX2_VERSION' environment variable
(*note Standards conformance::).
Scripts intended for use on standard hosts should avoid obsolete
syntax and should use `-k' instead. For example, avoid `sort +2',
since it might be interpreted as either `sort ./+2' or `sort -k 3'. If
your script must also run on hosts that support only the obsolete
syntax, it can use a test like `if sort -k 1 </dev/null >/dev/null
2>&1; then ...' to decide which syntax to use.
> I've been using that command syntax to sort IP's for several years without
> any problems until just recently.
You must have just recently upgraded to a newer version of coreutils.
Please start using the keys option to specify sort keys. The syntax
you need is this:
sort -n -t. -k1,1 -k2,2 -k3,3 -k4,4
You can find online standards information about sort here:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/sort.html
And more recent news about this change here:
http://www.opengroup.org/austin/docs/austin_239.html
Bob
_______________________________________________
Bug-coreutils mailing list
Bug-coreutils@gnu.org
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
