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Shell Programming and Scripting

sort mystery

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# 1  
Old 04-16-2010
sort mystery
Hi everyone,

I can't seem to understand the behavior of sort on a particular case.

Code:
cat tmp25
1    a
10    b
20    c
2    d

I do that:

Code:
sort -k1,1 tmp25
1    a
10    b
2    d
20    c

This one I understand, it's what i expected, from a string point of view 1<10<2<20

Code:
sort -k1 tmp25
10    b
1    a
20    c
2    d

But this one????

Anyone understands why it gives that order? Smilie
Thanks!!

Anthony
# 2  
Old 04-16-2010
I get same results for both the commands
Code:
$ sort -k1,1 file
1    a
10    b
2    d
20    c
$ sort -k1 file
1    a
10    b
2    d
20    c

# 3  
Old 04-16-2010
That's odd..

It's a direct copy/paste from my terminal....:

Code:
14:33:55 anthony:~$ echo -e "1\ta\n10\tb\n20\tc\n2\td" | sort -k1,1
1    a
10    b
2    d
20    c
14:33:56 anthony:~$ echo -e "1\ta\n10\tb\n20\tc\n2\td" | sort -k1
10    b
1    a
20    c
2    d
14:33:56 anthony:~$

# 4  
Old 04-16-2010
what did you expect?
Code:
sort -n -k1,1 tmp25

# 5  
Old 04-16-2010
Because in the second sort where you say that the key is one character long, the sort program does not necessarily maintain keys that are equal on a fifo basis.
# 6  
Old 04-16-2010
Hi vgersh99,
Thanks but I actually want a sort based on the string values. I try to understand that 2nd output as it's a mystery to me!

Jgt,
wait i'm not sure I understand. i thought -kX1,Y1 -kX2, Y2... meant that the sort were to happen on field X1 to Y1 and to X2 to Y2. Does it have to do with the position of CHARACTER, not field??
# 7  
Old 04-16-2010
Can you modify your input data, maybe you have already saved the unsorted file to disk.
Change the tmp25 file so that the file actually is
10<tab>a
1<sp><tab>b
20<tab>c
2<sp><tab>d

Where <sp> is space and <tab> is tab.
It may be that your sort program is restricting the length of key1 to the shortest key 1.
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