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From: root@hobbes.UUCP (John Plocher)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Multiple Field Sorts in UNIX(tm)
Message-ID: <155@hobbes.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Jul-87 12:54:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: hobbes.155
Posted: Thu Jul 23 12:54:40 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 11:54:42 EDT
References: <2459@whuts.UUCP> <758@custom.UUCP> <7651@mimsy.UUCP>
Reply-To: root@hobbes.UUCP (John Plocher)
Followup-To: comp.unix.questions
Organization: U of Wisconsin - Madison  Spanish Department
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Xref: mnetor comp.unix.questions:3316 comp.sources.wanted:1701

+---- Chris Torek writes the following in article <7651@mimsy.UUCP> ----
| >UNIX Sort  allows you to do exactly what you want.
|  ... unless you need a numeric sort on one field but an alphabetical
| sorts on another, or if any of the other global sort flags conflict
| for two fields.
+----

Oops!

You must have missed the fine print buried in the middle of the man page :-)
The manual page for Sys5r2 sort(1) states: (after giving the options
for dictionary order, upper/lower case folding, ASCII only, "month", and
numeric compares) :

  "When ordering options appear before restricted sort key specifications, the
  requested ordering rules are applied globally to all sort keys.  When
  attached to a specific sort key (described below), the specified ordering
  options override all global ordering options for that key.

  "The notation +pos1 -pos2 restricts a sort key to one beginning at pos1
  and ending at pos2.  ...


In the 7th edition manual which "reflects the state of the Berkeley system,
December 1979" it states:

  "The notation +pos1 -pos2 restricts a sort key to one beginning at pos1
  and ending at pos2.  Pos1 and pos2 each have the form m.n, optionally 
  followed by one or more of the flags *bdfinr*, where m tells a number of
  fields to skip from the beginning of the line and n tells a number of chars
  to skip further.  If any flags are present they override all global ordering
  options for this key.  ...

I hope that the behavior of sort(1) has not changed in 4.3BSD!

   - John

-- 
John Plocher uwvax!geowhiz!uwspan!plocher  plocher%uwspan.UUCP@uwvax.CS.WISC.EDU