My concern is best described as follows. ~ $ echo -e "CVE-2018-13787\nCVE-2019-16649\nCVE-2019-16650\nCVE-2020-15046\nCVE-2018-13787" | sort -h CVE-2018-13787 CVE-2018-13787 CVE-2019-16649 CVE-2019-16650 CVE-2020-15046
~ $ echo -e "CVE-2018-13787\nCVE-2019-16649\nCVE-2019-16650\nCVE-2020-15046\nCVE-2018-13787" | sort -h -u CVE-2018-13787 The introduction of the unique operator (-u) returns a wrong answer when used with the human sorting operator (-h). Note the problem does not occur when the human sorting operator is not used. ~ $ echo -e "CVE-2018-13787\nCVE-2019-16649\nCVE-2019-16650\nCVE-2020-15046\nCVE-2018-13787" | sort CVE-2018-13787 CVE-2018-13787 CVE-2019-16649 CVE-2019-16650 CVE-2020-15046 ~ $ echo -e "CVE-2018-13787\nCVE-2019-16649\nCVE-2019-16650\nCVE-2020-15046\nCVE-2018-13787" | sort -u CVE-2018-13787 CVE-2019-16649 CVE-2019-16650 CVE-2020-15046 The example suggests the existence of a programming error between the output of -h and the input of -u. -------- Original Message -------- On 2/16/25 07:23, Paul Eggert wrote: > I don't see a bug there, just an infelicity. -h means 'sort' should look for > a number, and your data lines don't start with numbers. > > Try 'sort --debug -h -u' to see more. >
