BrowserUk:

I occasionally need to sort financial files from mainframes, so I'd love to see flags for packed decimal fields. I have a script that I use to patch up these files into text for sorting, but it would be nice to skip that step.

Also, I don't know whether your n flag means that the sort routine expects binary values in your records, or text strings representing numbers. If it means your records contain binary values, I'd really like to sort a numeric text column in natural order:

unsorted              sorted
----------            ----------
xxx1   xxx            xxx1   xxx
xxx11  xxx            xxx  5 xxx
xxx  5 xxx            xxx 010xxx
xxx010 xxx            xxx11  xxx

[download]

Regarding your comment about gnu sort: I know what you mean. I use it infrequently enough that I can't remember just how to specify what I want, but often enough to wish it was easy to remember. I generally have to sort the file a few times before I can get the switches just right.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

In reply to Re: sort utility key specification by roboticus
in thread sort utility key specification by BrowserUk

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