Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!uunet!bu.edu!bu-cs!snorkelwacker!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!nosun.west.sun.com!yamada-sun!eric
From: yamada-sun!eric@nosun.west.sun.com (Eric Hanchrow)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.bug
Subject: `sort-numeric-fields' has a weak idea of what constitutes a number
Message-ID: <9002080059.AA01115@yamada-sun.UUCP>
Date: 8 Feb 90 00:59:01 GMT
Sender: daemon@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Distribution: gnu
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
Lines: 24

GNU Emacs 18.55.
In `sort.el' (sort-numeric-fields), I see
	 (function (lambda ()
		     (sort-skip-fields (1- field))
		     (string-to-int
		      (buffer-substring
			(point)
			(save-excursion
			  (skip-chars-forward "[0-9]")
			  (point))))))
It appears that the `skip-chars-forward' implicitly defines the
regular expression which determines what constitues a number.  It
would be nice if this were more general: If perhaps there were a
variable `sort-number-regexp' or something.  What brought this to my
attention was the fact that sorting fields which contained negative
numbers didn't work.  I changed the line to
			  (skip-chars-forward "-[0-9]")
and it works fine.
	-------------------------------------------------------------------------
	|Eric Hanchrow		yamada-sun!eric@nosun.west.sun.com		|
	|Phase III Logic, Inc.	...!{tektronix, sun}!nosun!yamada-sun!eric	|
	|1600 N.W. 167th Place		Beaverton, OR 97006			|
	|Voice: (503)-645-0313		Fax: (503)-645-0207	as of 13-Dec-89	|
	-------------------------------------------------------------------------