Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.17 $; site ccvaxa.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece From: preece@ccvaxa.UUCP Newsgroups: net.bugs.usg Subject: Re: sort(1) -uf output inconsistent with Message-ID: <24600001@ccvaxa.UUCP> Date: Tue, 15-Jan-85 18:02:00 EST Article-I.D.: ccvaxa.24600001 Posted: Tue Jan 15 18:02:00 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 18-Jan-85 02:23:33 EST References: <826@ariel.UUCP> Lines: 16 Nf-ID: #R:ariel:-82600:ccvaxa:24600001:000:780 Nf-From: ccvaxa!preece Jan 15 17:02:00 1985 The use of tr with sort is unlikely to do the desired thing. When I sort things I usually want the output to look like the input, including use of upper and lower case. It's only the ordering mechanism that should ignore case. You could write a similar sort using simple tools to (1) extract key fields into a file, (2) tr them, (3) attach the key fields on to the front of the corresponding data lines, (4) sort, (5) strip off the key fields. This seems like an awful lot of effort to do the natural kind of sort for text fields. The use of the -f flag seems like a perfectly natural way to tell the sort program to use special conventions for a text field just as the -n flag tells sort that to use special conventions for numbers. scott preece ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece