Re: its not a bug, its limitation

[Eric Blake]

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Consider upgrading.  Textutils was joined with coreutils, and the latest
stable version is now 6.9; based on the obsolete mail address you chose,
your version is quite obsolete.

According to OBLus on 4/29/2007 4:58 PM:
> hi                         2007-04-30
> 
> in textutils package program called "join" should have -sort option
> which could sort (ASC or DESC) both fields -1 1 -1 2 before two files
> will be compared...

No, in Unix philosophy, it is better to have small programs that do one
thing well, then to have one program that does lots of things but nothing
well.  Since the 'sort' utility exists, and is also part of coreutils, and
can sort ascending or descending on the first two fields of a given file,
it doesn't make much sense to add sorting capabilities into the 'join'
utility unless you can prove that the efficiency gain and non-portable
extension outweigh the maintenance burden.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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