Re: sort does not use tab as delimiter

[Bob Proulx]

The Wanderer wrote:
> I've never used Ctrl-V to paste in Linux except in Mozilla, and frankly,
> I don't think I'd have expected it to work outside of things like
> OpenOffice and so forth (i.e., graphical applications, mostly
> Windows-alikes). I've always used "highlight and middle-click",
> particularly in xterms, and that very definitely does not allow the
> literal entry of tabs into bash.
> 
> Actually, I just tested - entered a tab in this mail, copied it with
> Ctrl-C, attempted to paste it into an xterm with Ctrl-V. No result.

You are confusing MS-Windows style cutting and pasting with
bash command line reading of input.  They are not related.  Put it
right out of your head at this moment!

Bash uses C-v to mean the same thing that it does in vi, to input the
next character verbatim.  The old vi man page used to say this:

           ^V          In input mode, ^V quotes the next character to permit
                       the insertion of special characters (including ESC)
                       into the file.

Bash uses both C-v and C-q for this purpose.  C-v is vi-like and C-q
is emacs-like.  In emacs it quotes the next character.  However the
tty driver is usually configured to intercept C-q to XON after an XOFF
so most users have learned C-v for this purpose in the bash shell.

Bob