On Sun, 16 Feb 2025, at 06:23, 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.
The --debug output here isn't as helpful as it could be; taking a simplified example $ echo -e 'CVE-222\nCVE-111\nCVE-222' | sort -h -u --debug sort: text ordering performed using simple byte comparison sort: note numbers use '.' as a decimal point in this locale CVE-222 ^ no match for key $ echo $'bbb\naaa' | sort -n -u --debug sort: text ordering performed using simple byte comparison sort: note numbers use '.' as a decimal point in this locale bbb ^ no match for key Due to the diligent work by maintainers, there are very few genuine bugs in sort, so we can assume --debug users need as much help as possible figuring out where the sort options have gone wrong. How could the "no match for key" output here be clearer? Could --uniq --debug show elided lines with an explanation, especially for entire lines which match nothing? Cheers, Phil
