RE: different behavior of sort

[Sheila Yao]

Eric:

Very interesting. However, it doesn't seem to work, after I followed the 
instructions of 
http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/coreutils-faq.html#Sort-does-not-sort-in-normal-order_0021.


At the host that sort doesn't work, where LC_ALL is null,  I ran:
export LC_ALL=POSIX
env |grep LC_ALL
LC_ALL=POSIX
But sort still doesn't work:
sort -n -k2.1,2.4 /tmp/sort.out
/dev/emcpowera         47G   39G  7.8G  84% /DB1/DW/data9
/dev/emcpowerb         47G   43G  4.2G  91% /DB1/DW/data10
/dev/emcpowerc         46G  181M   46G   1% /DB1/DW/dwtmp16
/dev/emcpowerh         70G   30G   40G  43% /DB1/DW/data6
/dev/emcpoweri         70G   68G  2.2G  97% /DB1/DW/data7
/dev/emcpowerj         70G   68G  2.1G  97% /DB1/DW/data8
/dev/emcpowerl        540G  439G  102G  82% /DB1/DW/data3
/dev/emcpowerm        540G  420G  121G  78% /DB1/DW/data5
/dev/emcpowern         23G   14G  9.4G  59% /DB1/DW/data4
/dev/emcpowero        540G  509G   32G  95% /DB1/DW/data2
/dev/emcpoweru        600G  407G  194G  68% /DB1/DW/data1
/dev/emcpowerw        183G   29G  154G  16% /DB1/DW/LOGARCH
/dev/emcpowery         92G  188M   92G   1% /DB1/DW/LOGACT

===================================================================
At the other host where sort works, I ran:
export LC_ALL=POSIX
env |grep LC_ALL
LC_ALL=POSIX
And sort stopped working:
sort -n -k2.1,2.4 /tmp/sort.out
/dev/emcpowera         47G   39G  7.8G  84% /DB1/DW/data9
/dev/emcpowerb         47G   43G  4.2G  91% /DB1/DW/data10
/dev/emcpowerc         46G  181M   46G   1% /DB1/DW/dwtmp16
/dev/emcpowerh         70G   30G   40G  43% /DB1/DW/data6
/dev/emcpoweri         70G   68G  2.2G  97% /DB1/DW/data7
/dev/emcpowerj         70G   68G  2.1G  97% /DB1/DW/data8
/dev/emcpowerl        540G  439G  102G  82% /DB1/DW/data3
/dev/emcpowerm        540G  420G  121G  78% /DB1/DW/data5
/dev/emcpowern         23G   14G  9.4G  59% /DB1/DW/data4
/dev/emcpowero        540G  509G   32G  95% /DB1/DW/data2
/dev/emcpoweru        600G  407G  194G  68% /DB1/DW/data1
/dev/emcpowerw        183G   29G  154G  16% /DB1/DW/LOGARCH
/dev/emcpowery         92G  188M   92G   1% /DB1/DW/LOGACT

After I set it back to null, which was null originally, sort worked:
export LC_ALL=
sort -n -k2.1,2.4 /tmp/sort.out
/dev/emcpowern         23G   14G  9.4G  59% /DB1/DW/data4
/dev/emcpowerc         46G  181M   46G   1% /DB1/DW/dwtmp16
/dev/emcpowera         47G   39G  7.8G  84% /DB1/DW/data9
/dev/emcpowerb         47G   43G  4.2G  91% /DB1/DW/data10
/dev/emcpowerh         70G   30G   40G  43% /DB1/DW/data6
/dev/emcpoweri         70G   68G  2.2G  97% /DB1/DW/data7
/dev/emcpowerj         70G   68G  2.1G  97% /DB1/DW/data8
/dev/emcpowery         92G  188M   92G   1% /DB1/DW/LOGACT
/dev/emcpowerw        183G   29G  154G  16% /DB1/DW/LOGARCH
/dev/emcpowerl        540G  439G  102G  82% /DB1/DW/data3
/dev/emcpowerm        540G  420G  121G  78% /DB1/DW/data5
/dev/emcpowero        540G  509G   32G  95% /DB1/DW/data2
/dev/emcpoweru        600G  407G  194G  68% /DB1/DW/data1

At both hosts, it is LANG=en_US.UTF-8. 

I've checked several hosts. When sort is 5.2.1, it works. When sort is 5.97, it 
doesn't work. All hosts have LANG=en_US.UTF-8.


Thanks.
 
Have a nice day,
 
Sheila Yao

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Blake [mailto:address@hidden 
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 9:54 PM
To: Sheila Yao
Cc: address@hidden
Subject: Re: different behavior of sort

According to Sheila Yao on 1/18/2010 12:32 PM:
> At one box, I've sort version 5.2.1 and sort works correctly. At another box 
> with sort 5.97, it doesn't work correctly.

Both of those are quite old.  The latest stable version is 8.4.

> It works correctly for this output:

It probably works correctly for both outputs, with the difference boiling down 
to a difference in your input - namely your locale environment variables.  This 
is a FAQ:
http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/coreutils-faq.html#Sort-does-not-sort-in-normal-order_0021

--
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden