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Operating Systems Solaris Sort Oddity
# 1  
Old 10-26-2010
Question Sort Oddity
All,

I'm baffled by some sort behavior on SunOS 5.10 and looking for guidance.

Running the command:
Code:
sort -t'|' -k5,5 -k7,7 -k1,1 -k2,2 -k3,3 -k6,6 -k8,8 test

Against the file "test":
Code:
thirdA||||first||second|Data
thirdB||||first||second|
thirdC||||first||second|Data
thirdD||||first||second|Data

Yields:
Code:
thirdA||||first||second|Data
thirdC||||first||second|Data
thirdD||||first||second|Data
thirdB||||first||second|

Since the first (5) and second (7) sort keys are equal, I'm expecting the differentiating factor to be the third (1) and for the file to look as it did prior to the sort; however, because thirdB's last field (8) is blank, it appears at the bottom. If I put any content in this field it sorts as expected.

I get the same results whether my locale is "C" or "en_US.ISO8859-1." Can someone explain this behavior or how to achieve the sort I'm after?

Thanks much!
# 2  
Old 10-26-2010
Solaris has a bad sort at one point! This is old HPUX:

Code:
 
$ sort -t'|' -k5,5 -k7,7 -k1,1 -k2,2 -k3,3 -k6,6 -k8,8 <<!
thirdA||||first||second|Data
thirdB||||first||second|
thirdC||||first||second|Data
thirdD||||first||second|Data
!
thirdA||||first||second|Data
thirdB||||first||second|
thirdC||||first||second|Data
thirdD||||first||second|Data

$

# 3  
Old 10-26-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by effigy
All,

I'm baffled by some sort behavior on SunOS 5.10 and looking for guidance.

Running the command:
Code:
sort -t'|' -k5,5 -k7,7 -k1,1 -k2,2 -k3,3 -k6,6 -k8,8 test

Against the file "test":
Code:
thirdA||||first||second|Data
thirdB||||first||second|
thirdC||||first||second|Data
thirdD||||first||second|Data

Yields:
Code:
thirdA||||first||second|Data
thirdC||||first||second|Data
thirdD||||first||second|Data
thirdB||||first||second|

Since the first (5) and second (7) sort keys are equal, I'm expecting the differentiating factor to be the third (1) and for the file to look as it did prior to the sort; however, because thirdB's last field (8) is blank, it appears at the bottom. If I put any content in this field it sorts as expected.

I get the same results whether my locale is "C" or "en_US.ISO8859-1." Can someone explain this behavior or how to achieve the sort I'm after?

Thanks much!
For me it works ...
Code:
# cat tst
thirdA||||first||second|Data
thirdB||||first||second|
thirdC||||first||second|Data
thirdD||||first||second|Data
# sort -t'|' -k5,5 -k7,7 -k1,1 -k2,2 -k3,3 -k6,6 -k8,8 tst
thirdA||||first||second|Data
thirdC||||first||second|Data
thirdD||||first||second|Data
thirdB||||first||second|
# uname -a
SunOS <anonymized> 5.10 Generic_127111-10 sun4us sparc FJSV,GPUZC-M
#

Are you running SPARC ?
Is your system up to date ?
By the way ... it is a good habit not to use "test" as a file name since it is a command name.
This User Gave Thanks to ctsgnb For This Post:
effigy
# 4  
Old 10-26-2010
B.Solaris 10 Operating System Patch List (Solaris 10 Release Notes) - Sun Microsystems

118824-01 SunOS 5.10: patch usr/bin/sparcv9/sort
This User Gave Thanks to DGPickett For This Post:
effigy
# 5  
Old 10-26-2010
We're SPARC and apparently lacking updates. I wonder if there's a workaround? I'll research further and see what we can do about updating. Thanks!
Code:
SunOS <anonymized> 5.10 Generic_137137-09 sun4v sparc SUNW,T5240

# 6  
Old 10-26-2010
gnu sort = coreutils, or download fix.

I found this funny note:

http://dlc.sun.com/pdf/819-7324/819-7324.pdf

Sort Capability in the European UTF-8 Locales Does
Not Function Correctly (4307314)
The sort capability in the European UTF-8 locales does not work properly.
Workaround: Before you attempt to sort in a FIGGS UTF-8 locale, set the LC_COLLATE
variable to the ISO1 equivalent.
# echo $LC_COLLATE
> es_ES.UTF-8
# LC_COLLATE=es_ES.IS08859-1
# export LC_COLLATE
Then start sorting.
Last edited by DGPickett; 10-26-2010 at 05:28 PM..
This User Gave Thanks to DGPickett For This Post:
effigy
# 7  
Old 10-26-2010
Thanks DG. One last inquiry here: How do I find a detailed description of the bug (so I can pass it onto our admins)? I tried searching bugs.sun.com with the two numbers in your link ("118824-01" and "6178339"), but I'm not getting any results. I've searched plenty of non-Sun bug sites with success; what am I missing?
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