** Description changed:
+ [Impact] In some corner cases, 'sort -u' loses data.
+ [Test Case] http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=9780
+ [Regression Potential] It's coreutils, and a change to a vital system
utility. The coreutils test suite should save us from the worst mistakes, but
some paranoia would be justified. Perhaps booting a system with this change
and using it for a day or two would be wise.
+
+ Original report follows:
+
Last year a bug was reported to upstream coreutils [1] about problems on
using 'sort -u'. Until recently, there was no known reproducing process;
one such process was published last week [2].
Although triggering the bug can be said to be a non-completely trivial
use case, data loss in 'sort' should be looked at as a serious issue.
Today Jim Meyering committed what looks like the final touches of the
fix (incidentally also solving a different issue (a free memory read),
also in 'sort'. There are 4 commits affected, and they are shown
starting in [3].
Given this is a data loss potential, I am opening this bug for all
affected releases (this bug affects Coreutils 8.6 onwards -- Precise and
Quantal). I am still to run the tests on Lucid, Natty, and Oneiric.
[1] http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=9780
[2] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2012-08/msg00027.html
[3] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2012-08/msg00057.html
** Changed in: coreutils (Ubuntu Precise)
Status: Confirmed => In Progress
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1038468
Title:
data loss on sort -u
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