The following problem came to light following a StackOverflow question [1]. The lexical ordering of sort appears to depend on the delimiter used, and I believe it shouldn't. As a minimal example:
### Correct ordering ### $ printf "1,a,1\n2,aa,2" | LC_ALL=C sort -k2 -t, 1,a,1 2,aa,2 ### Incorrect ordering by replacing the "," delimiter by "~" ### $ printf "1~a~1\n2~aa~2" | LC_ALL=C sort -k2 -t~ 2~aa~2 1~a~1 I think this is because, in ASCII, "," < "a" < "~". Many thanks, Ed [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/34134677/trying-to-understand-the-sort-utilty-in-linux
