4.?bsd "sort -n" says -0 == 0 (with documentation fix)
Arthur David Olson
ado at elsie.UUCP
Tue Dec 10 04:06:41 AEST 1985
Index: man/man1/sort.1 Fix
Description:
When sorting numbers, 'sort' takes "-0" to be equal to "0".
Repeat-By:
Run these commands through sh:
awk 'BEGIN { for (f = -3.1; f <= 3.1; f += 0.5) printf "%3.0f\n", f; exit }' > a
sort -n < a > b
pr -m -t -l1 -w20 a b
and note the output:
-3 -3
-3 -3
-2 -2
-2 -2
-1 -1
-1 -1
-0 0
0 -0
1 1
1 1
2 2
2 2
3 3
where the lines with "-0" and "0" have been swapped because they
were sorted alphabetically (since their numerical values were taken
to be equal).
Fix:
Add the material between the ".NU" and the ".." directives below to
"man/man1/sort.1" As usual, the trade-secret status of the material
involved precludes a clearer posting.
An initial numeric string,
consisting of optional blanks, optional minus sign,
and zero or more digits with optional decimal point,
is sorted by arithmetic value.
.NU
(Note that
.B \-0
is taken to be equal to
.BR 0 .)
..
Option
.B n
implies option
.B b.
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