Re: sort and leading blanks

[Pádraig Brady]

Mike Frysinger wrote:
> a user reported an issue with coreutils' sort and -b/-k usage.  it seems to 
> be 
> a regression from 5.x -> 6.x, or maybe a bug fix :).
> 
> the simple case:
> $ printf 'a b c\na  b c\n' | sort -u -b -k1,1
> a b c
> a  b c
> 
> the user contests that there should only be one line displayed (and that is 
> how coreutils-5 seems to have behaved).
> 
> rather than me copying & pasting a lot of info, here's the URL:
> http://bugs.gentoo.org/263723

I'm a bit confused.
The issue as reported seems to be fixed with this change done last month:
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=coreutils.git;a=commitdiff;h=224a69b56b716f57e3a018af5a9b9379f32da3fc#patch3
I.E. I reverted that change and I can reproduce the issue.

However in the bug report you're seeing the issue with coreutils-7.1
which should have the fix. Also Jim checked that the original textutils
had this issue but you say coreutils-5 did not?

cheers,
Pádraig.