Matthew Woehlke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Paul Eggert wrote: >> Matthew Woehlke writes: >>> Paul Eggert wrote: >>>> Matthew Woehlke writes: >>>>> '-N _options_, --numeric-sort=_options_' >>>> The other sort options can be attached to -k; how would this work >>>> here? >>> Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this comment. What >>> would be attached to -k, and how? >> For example, "sort -k2,2n -k3,3g" says sort numerically in column 2, >> breaking ties with a general numeric sort in column 3. > > Ok, but how would I sort these? > > 2006-11-06 13:20:15 > 2006-11-05 12:18:04 > 2006-11-06 13:20:37 > 2005-04-01 01:01:01 > > ...see where the number of args to '-k' quickly gets out of hand?
Sure, but my point was not that the new options can be implemented with -k. It is that there needs to be some way to attach the new options to particular keys. That is, one would like to sort with your new -Nr option just on these two keys, and then sort with some other options on other keys. > (Although, it really so trivial to determine which of "1000.0" > and "1.0e3" is larger? :-)) It is not completely trivial to do it in general, but it is doable. The harder case is when you are comparing multiples of powers of 2. >> No, you compare the strings directly, without converting to integer >> or >> double. That is how the existing code works for -n. > > I'm not sure that would work. Which of "1564863215536" or > "0x16C591DB7B0" is larger? :-) (Only a problem with base=auto, of > course, but it illustrates why I don't see an easy way to do the > comparison purely in string-space.) Yes, that illustrates the harder case. > This brings up another question I should probably ask; are digits > 9 > case-sensitive? I don't see why they would be. I suppose you could add an option to let the user specify the spelling of the digits, but perhaps this is overkill. _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list Bug-coreutils@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
