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From: preece@uicsl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: /bin/sort bug - (nf)
Message-ID: <2686@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Sep-83 23:44:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.2686
Posted: Thu Sep  1 23:44:56 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Sep-83 08:39:37 EDT
Lines: 19

#R:ccieng5:-13300:uicsl:12500007:000:621
uicsl!preece    Sep  1 11:58:00 1983

>From the man page for sort:

	"Lines that otherwise compare equal are ordered
	with all bytes significant."

There is, in any case, no rule that says a sort has to be stable.
Most of the system sort packages I've used are not stable: items
with the same key are arbitrarily ordered, not in the original
order. The authors of this sort have kindly told us what that
arbitrary ordering will be (a sort on the non-key parts of the line).
Lines which are identical will presumably be in an unspecified
order, but since they're identical, you won't be able to tell
the difference...

scott preece
pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!preece