Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: sort question
Message-ID: <10289@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 18 May 89 02:48:16 GMT
References: <199448@hrc.UUCP> <810056@hpsemc.HP.COM>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 10

In article <810056@hpsemc.HP.COM> gph@hpsemc.HP.COM (Paul Houtz) writes:
>What unix sort do you use if you have a data file with mixed binary
>and ascii fields?

Your first problem is to define exactly what constitutes a "record"
for such a case.  The other systems you mention support (require?)
file attributes such as record size; on UNIX files are just structureless
byte arrays.  The new-line terminator convention allows text files to
be dealt with on a line-oriented basis, but there is no widespread UNIX
convention for binary file structures.