Bug in sort(1) when using +m.n -o.p and -tc

[David E A Wilson]

gwyn at smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>No, it's just a feature.
>>/usr/5bin/sort -t: +1.1 -1.2 +1.0 -1.1 <<!
>That should have been
>	sort -t: +1.1 -1.3 +1.0 -1.2
>as documented and shown in an example in the SVR2 manual entry SORT(1).

It looks like the SunOS 4.1.1 manual is in error then:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Field Specification Options
     -tc  Use c as the word delimiter  character;  unlike  white-
          space  characters,  adjacent  delimiters  indicate word
          breaks; if : is the delimiter character, :: delimits an
          empty word.

     sort-field
          This is a  combination  of  options  that  specifies  a
          field,  within  each  line,  to  sort on.  A sort-field
          specification can take either of the following forms:
               +sw[cf]
               +sw -ew[cf]

          where sw is the number of the starting word  (beginning
          with  `0') to include in the field, ew is the number of
          the word before which to end the field,  and  cf  is  a
          string  containing  collating  flags (without a leading
          `-'.) When  included  in  a  sort-field  specification,
          these  flags  apply  only to the field being specified,
          and when given, override other collating flags given in
          separate  arguments (which otherwise apply to an entire
          line).

          If the -ew option is omitted, the  field  continues  to
          the end of a line.

          You can apply a character offset to sw and ew to  indi-
          cate  that a field is to start or end a given number of
          characters within a word, using the notation: `w.c'.  A
          starting  position  specified in the form: `+w.c' indi-
          cates the character in position c (beginning with 0 for
          the  first  character),  within  word  w (1 and 1.0 are
          equivalent).  An ending position specified in the form:
          `-w.c'  indicates  that the field ends at the character
          just prior to position c (beginning with 0 for the del-
          imiter  just prior to the first character), within word
          w.  If the -b flag is in effect, c is counted from  the
          first non-white-space or non-delimiter character in the
          field, otherwise, delimiter characters are counted.
EXAMPLES
     Sort, in reverse order,  the  contents  of  input-file1  and
     input-file2, placing the output in output-file and using the
     first character of the second field as the sort key:

          sort -r -o output-file  +1.0  -1.1  input-file1  input-
          file2

     Sort, in reverse order,  the  contents  of  input-file1  and
     input-file2  using  the  first  non-blank  character  of the
     second field as the sort key:

          sort -r +1.0b -1.1b input-file1 input-file2
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-- 
David Wilson	Dept Comp Sci, Uni of Wollongong	david at cs.uow.edu.au