Eric: Very interesting. However, it doesn't seem to work, after I followed the instructions of http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/coreutils-faq.html#Sort-does-not-sort-in-normal-order_0021.
At the host that sort doesn't work, where LC_ALL is null, I ran: export LC_ALL=POSIX env |grep LC_ALL LC_ALL=POSIX But sort still doesn't work: sort -n -k2.1,2.4 /tmp/sort.out /dev/emcpowera 47G 39G 7.8G 84% /DB1/DW/data9 /dev/emcpowerb 47G 43G 4.2G 91% /DB1/DW/data10 /dev/emcpowerc 46G 181M 46G 1% /DB1/DW/dwtmp16 /dev/emcpowerh 70G 30G 40G 43% /DB1/DW/data6 /dev/emcpoweri 70G 68G 2.2G 97% /DB1/DW/data7 /dev/emcpowerj 70G 68G 2.1G 97% /DB1/DW/data8 /dev/emcpowerl 540G 439G 102G 82% /DB1/DW/data3 /dev/emcpowerm 540G 420G 121G 78% /DB1/DW/data5 /dev/emcpowern 23G 14G 9.4G 59% /DB1/DW/data4 /dev/emcpowero 540G 509G 32G 95% /DB1/DW/data2 /dev/emcpoweru 600G 407G 194G 68% /DB1/DW/data1 /dev/emcpowerw 183G 29G 154G 16% /DB1/DW/LOGARCH /dev/emcpowery 92G 188M 92G 1% /DB1/DW/LOGACT =================================================================== At the other host where sort works, I ran: export LC_ALL=POSIX env |grep LC_ALL LC_ALL=POSIX And sort stopped working: sort -n -k2.1,2.4 /tmp/sort.out /dev/emcpowera 47G 39G 7.8G 84% /DB1/DW/data9 /dev/emcpowerb 47G 43G 4.2G 91% /DB1/DW/data10 /dev/emcpowerc 46G 181M 46G 1% /DB1/DW/dwtmp16 /dev/emcpowerh 70G 30G 40G 43% /DB1/DW/data6 /dev/emcpoweri 70G 68G 2.2G 97% /DB1/DW/data7 /dev/emcpowerj 70G 68G 2.1G 97% /DB1/DW/data8 /dev/emcpowerl 540G 439G 102G 82% /DB1/DW/data3 /dev/emcpowerm 540G 420G 121G 78% /DB1/DW/data5 /dev/emcpowern 23G 14G 9.4G 59% /DB1/DW/data4 /dev/emcpowero 540G 509G 32G 95% /DB1/DW/data2 /dev/emcpoweru 600G 407G 194G 68% /DB1/DW/data1 /dev/emcpowerw 183G 29G 154G 16% /DB1/DW/LOGARCH /dev/emcpowery 92G 188M 92G 1% /DB1/DW/LOGACT After I set it back to null, which was null originally, sort worked: export LC_ALL= sort -n -k2.1,2.4 /tmp/sort.out /dev/emcpowern 23G 14G 9.4G 59% /DB1/DW/data4 /dev/emcpowerc 46G 181M 46G 1% /DB1/DW/dwtmp16 /dev/emcpowera 47G 39G 7.8G 84% /DB1/DW/data9 /dev/emcpowerb 47G 43G 4.2G 91% /DB1/DW/data10 /dev/emcpowerh 70G 30G 40G 43% /DB1/DW/data6 /dev/emcpoweri 70G 68G 2.2G 97% /DB1/DW/data7 /dev/emcpowerj 70G 68G 2.1G 97% /DB1/DW/data8 /dev/emcpowery 92G 188M 92G 1% /DB1/DW/LOGACT /dev/emcpowerw 183G 29G 154G 16% /DB1/DW/LOGARCH /dev/emcpowerl 540G 439G 102G 82% /DB1/DW/data3 /dev/emcpowerm 540G 420G 121G 78% /DB1/DW/data5 /dev/emcpowero 540G 509G 32G 95% /DB1/DW/data2 /dev/emcpoweru 600G 407G 194G 68% /DB1/DW/data1 At both hosts, it is LANG=en_US.UTF-8. I've checked several hosts. When sort is 5.2.1, it works. When sort is 5.97, it doesn't work. All hosts have LANG=en_US.UTF-8. Thanks. Have a nice day, Sheila Yao -----Original Message----- From: Eric Blake [mailto:e...@byu.net] Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 9:54 PM To: Sheila Yao Cc: bug-coreutils@gnu.org Subject: Re: different behavior of sort According to Sheila Yao on 1/18/2010 12:32 PM: > At one box, I've sort version 5.2.1 and sort works correctly. At another box > with sort 5.97, it doesn't work correctly. Both of those are quite old. The latest stable version is 8.4. > It works correctly for this output: It probably works correctly for both outputs, with the difference boiling down to a difference in your input - namely your locale environment variables. This is a FAQ: http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/coreutils-faq.html#Sort-does-not-sort-in-normal-order_0021 -- Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well! Eric Blake e...@byu.net
