bug#6366: join can't join on numeric fields

[Pádraig Brady]

On 07/06/10 06:19, Alex Shinn wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Ideally join should be able to handle files sorted in any order
> that sort provides, but as a bare minimum it should at least
> be able to join files sorted on numeric fields.

Well if there were no aliases in the numbers, you could always
sort the output numerically after the join if it was important.
However if you wanted to join "01" and "1" then your patch is required.
Are numeric aliases common enough to warrant this? I think so.

> The attached simple patch provides -n, --numeric-sort
> options to this effect.

I'd use -g, --general-numeric to correspond with `sort`.

cheers,
Pádraig.