Peng Yu wrote: > man sort says "Set LC_ALL=C to get the traditional sort order that > uses native byte values."
Yes. > man comm says "Note, comparisons honor the rules specified by 'LC_COLLATE'." Yes. No. Almost. It honors LANG if neither LC_COLLATE nor LC_ALL is set. It honors LC_COLLATE if LC_ALL is not set. If LC_ALL is set then it honors LC_ALL. LC_ALL also overrides LC_CTYPE. > My test shows that it seems LC_COLLATE=C is sufficient to make sort > using native byte values. Is it so? Yes. No. Almost. LC_ALL overrides LC_COLLATE. The three variables in locale order are LANG, then LC_COLLATE, then LC_ALL. LC_ALL also overrides LC_CTYPE. Setting LC_COLLATE mostly works fine. I always set this in my environment. export LANG=en_US.UTF-8 export LC_COLLATE=C But while setting LC_COLLATE=C works for typical western locales there is concern about others. What will be the interaction with Chinese big5 encoding for characters? It probably own't behave in a desirable way. LC_ALL=C is probably required then to override LC_CTYPE. Therefore while using LC_COLLATE alone works for some character encodings it can't be definitively stated as working for all cases as a general rule. Setting LC_ALL can be stated as a general rule because LC_ALL overrides LC_CTYPE while LC_COLLATE does not. The locale behavior is controlled by libc. If you have GNU libc installed then the installed manual will match your system. info -f libc 'Locale Categories' The most recent version is available on the web at the project site: http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Locale-Categories.html#Locale-Categories Bob
