After reading the man more carefully, an end position should be specified for the key: "KEYDEF is F[.C][OPTS][,F[.C][OPTS]] for start and stop position, where F is a field number and C a character position in the field; both are origin 1, and the stop position defaults to the line's end." Hence cat junk AA|def A|xyz cat junk | sort -k1,1 -t"|" # 1=start position, 1=end position A|xyz AA|def It's all good now. On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 21:47:24 +0000, Amadeus WM wrote: > I've been using sort for years and I just ran into something I've never > seen and I can't explain. > > cat spam AA|3334 A|3826 > > cat spam | sort -k1 -t"|" # this works! > A|3826 AA|3334 > > > Now > > cat junk AA|def A|xyz > > cat junk | sort -k1 -t"|" # this doesn't AA|def A|xyz > > The two files spam and junk have the exact same first column, but one > gets sorted, the other doesn't. What am I missing? > > Thanks! > > _______________________________________________ > users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send > an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: > https://getfedora.org/code-of-conduct.html List Guidelines: > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: > https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/ users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://getfedora.org/code-of-conduct.html List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
