Subject: bug#17189: Sort bug #2

From: Eric Blake <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 12:43:47 -0600

On 04/07/2014 12:11 PM, Nikos Balkanas wrote:

>>
>> What more are you proposing?
>>
> 
> I have already written a patch. It uses the available "-a" command line
> option to
>  "force" traditional (ascii) sorting. Have updated man pages accordingly.
> 
> What is the best way to upload it?

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/HACKING describes
the best way to send a patch.  However, I will warn you that we are very
reluctant to burn a short option letter if there is not already existing
practice of another non-GNU implementation using the same short option
letter for the same meaning.  Furthermore, I think that:

LC_ALL=C sort ...

is just about as easy to type as:

sort --ascii ...

and that since the former is standardized by POSIX and already supported
by non-GNU sort and in wide use now, while the latter is an extension
and not likely to percolate into common use for several years, that it
is unlikely that we will take the patch (when two ways exist to do the
same thing, we prefer the standardized way over a GNU-specific
extension).  I can't outright reject your patch without seeing it, but
am just trying to warn you that the bar for new features in coreutils is
fairly high.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org