On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 7:35 PM, Jim Meyering<j...@meyering.net> wrote: > Pádraig Brady wrote: >> I find it quite difficult to determine correct key positions to use, >> especially given the complicated rules for (global) -b options etc. >> >> I wonder would it be useful to add a --key-debug option, >> which would mark in the output the keys used. >> >> For multibyte locales you could use: ⌜key1⌟ blah blah⌜ key2⌟ >> or for single byte locales: «key1» blah blah« key2» >> or for ascii: (key1) blah blah( key2) >> >> It might mean that users would not have to reference the >> detailed documentation as much. Note the above markings don't > > Yes! > Such an option definitely would have saved me a lot of time over the > years.
Without wishing to massively overcomplicate things, another alternative way to visualise things is to have an option which makes sort output only the key data - kind of like "grep --only-matching". I don't have a preference between the options other than to comment that while your original suggestion has the issue that some data may contain ( or » or something like that, it also has the benefit that people would be less likely to rely on a specific output format in scripts, leaving us free to tweak the format for best usability. James. _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list Bug-coreutils@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
