Re: sort -c --dont-poop-out-at-the-first-disorder

[Jim Meyering]

Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> wrote:
> Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org> writes:
>>
>>   $ sort -c timez1
>>   sort: timez1:418: disorder: 1162082133
>> is great at finding the first one, but to find the other two one has
>> to use ones brains. No fair.
>
> Isn't that already a contradiction to POSIX?  SUSv3 states that there should
> not be any output at all:
>
> | -c
> |     Check that the single input file is ordered as specified by
> |     the arguments and the collating sequence of the current locale.
> |     No output shall be produced; only the exit code shall be affected.

Hi Ralf,

You're right.  That use of "output" is ambiguous.
The POSIX sort spec is in the process of being adjusted, since that
wording never clearly described existing practice, and it wasn't intended
to make existing implementations nonconforming.