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



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