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From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: sort difficulties
Message-ID: <20452:Mar1209:16:0091@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 12 Mar 91 09:16:00 GMT
References: <1105@maestro.queensu.CA>
Organization: IR
Lines: 15

In article <1105@maestro.queensu.CA> levisonm@qucis.queensu.CA (Mark Levison) writes:
> maestrosh[277]sort -m -z 5000 breakup
> sort: invalid use of command line options

Some sorts insist that you leave out the space: -z5000. (Pretty silly
interface, if you ask me. I don't see why sort should care what the
maximum line length is beforehand.)

> sort -n -mu file1 file2 >! outputfile

Wasn't there some talk about this in comp.bugs.sys5 recently? Basically,
yes, that's what some sorts do with -n, and you should either get used
to it or use some field specifiers to avoid it.

---Dan