David Cook (davidcook) wrote,
David Cook
davidcook
  • Mood: geeky

Apparently there's a bug in sort ... or something.

So, a strange Unix thing I noticed today.

Given the following file :

> cat list2
1
1
2
A
B

Now try sorting it. First with just "-u" (sort uniquely) :

> sort -u list2
1
2
A
B

Now add "-n" to sort numerically (if the field looks like a number) :

> sort -un list2
A
1
2

Where did the "B" go ??
I've seen this in sort under Solaris 8, the GNU version in Ubuntu 7.04 and the gnuwin32 version on Windows. Surely it's a bug ?
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