[re-adding the bug, with permission] On 07/22/2014 10:14 AM, n buckner wrote: > Sorry didn't see this at the bottom of the manpage. info coreutils 'sort > invocation' > > The manpage is kind of misleading because it does not convey that at all. > > -n, --numeric-sort > compare according to string numerical value > > -u, --unique > with -c, check for strict ordering; without -c, output only > the first of an equal run > >
If you think we can improve the documentation, to make it more obvious
that -u only covers uniqueness between keys, and that -n stops a key at
the first non-numeric character, suggestions are welcome. Remember that
the man page is generated from the --help text, and that those are
supposed to be consise; but the info page should definitely go into more
detail. And in fact, I see this in the info page:
The commands 'sort -u' and 'sort | uniq' are equivalent, but this
equivalence does not extend to arbitrary 'sort' options. For
example, 'sort -n -u' inspects only the value of the initial
numeric string when checking for uniqueness, whereas 'sort -n |
uniq' inspects the entire line. *Note uniq invocation::.
which is _exactly_ what you filed this bug report about.
--
Eric Blake eblake redhat com +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
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