/bin/sort bug

[Timothy G. Becker]

I don't think that /bin/sort works right.
(We are using 4.1bsd /bin/sort, if it makes any difference).

If I type "sort +0 -1 input >out", I expect the input file to be sorted
beginning with the first field and ending before the second field.

The left hand column is the input file contents.  The middle column
contains what I think the output should be.  The right most column is
what /bin/sort actually produces.

=========================================================
input		       expected			actual
=========================================================
a a a			a a a			a a a
b a a			a c a			a b a
a c a			a b a			a c a
b c a			b a a			b a a
a b a			b c a			b b a
b b a			b b a			b c a

The bottom line is that sort continues to look at the remaining fields
in the line even though the "-pos" argument tells him not to.  Does
anyone disagree that above sort command should do what I expected?  Any
ideas?  Any fixes?

Tim Becker
Computer Consoles, Inc.
Rochester, NY
...!seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccieng5!tgb