To: bug-coreutils@gnu.org This seems an oversight than an actual bug:     'sort -n' thinks "B" is a larger value than "AA" -- yep! someone forgot about hexadecimal, but binary, octal, and decimal work fine. Suggestion: Don't revert to alphanumeric sorting until the rules are broken by the sort field:     1) There is an optional leading Plus(+) or Minus(-) but just one.     2) There is an optional single Point(.) that may occur anywhere        within the field except before an optional Plus or Minus.     3) Numerals are limited to "0123456789ABCDEFabcdef".     4) No white space, other letters, or other punctuation allowed or        revert to alphanumeric sort. Thank You, J.B. P.S.: Shouldn't be necessary to transform data to sort it...       Use '-nx' or '-gx' if you must, but it shouldn't be needed.