Subject: bug#48070: sort.exe cannot do ascii ordering but help says it can.

From: Bernhard Voelker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2021 22:24:25 +0200

On 4/27/21 7:39 PM, Peter SMITH1 (contractor) via GNU coreutils Bug Reports wrote:
> CONFIDENTIAL & RESTRICTED

This cannot be enforced on a public mailing list, for obvious reasons.

> Hello,
> 
> C:\gener\gnuutils>\bin\sort --version
> sort (GNU coreutils) 5.3.0
> Written by Mike Haertel and Paul Eggert.
> 
> Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This is a report with a 16-year-old version of the tool.
Not sure if the issue - if any - still exists in the current version (8.32)

Furthermore, you are using a Windows binary - usually one would try to
seek help at the creator of that, i.e., the distributor, first.

> C:\gener\gnuutils>type test.dat
> bbbb
> aaaa
> ZZZZ
> BBBB
> 
> C:\gener\gnuutils>set LC_ALL=C
> 
> C:\gener\gnuutils>\bin\sort test.dat
> aaaa
> bbbb
> BBBB
> ZZZZ
> 
> C:\gener\gnuutils>

It seems that the locale information available to sort differs from that
of a current system:

  $ env LC_ALL=C sort test.dat
  BBBB
  ZZZZ
  aaaa
  bbbb

or that your version of sort enables case-folding (-f):

  $ LC_ALL=C sort -f test.dat
  aaaa
  BBBB
  bbbb
  ZZZZ

As the version you are using is that old, and the environment is quite different,
I'm afraid we cannot help much here.  First, I'd try to get a newer build and
see if the problem still exists.

Have a nice day,
Berny