Re: sort --version-sort

[Taylor R Campbell <riastradh%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

> Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2025 21:58:57 +0100
> From: Thomas Klausner <wiz%NetBSD.org@localhost>
> 
> I recently used software that wanted to use "sort --version-sort".  I
> looked around and noticed that even though our sort(1) doesn't support
> this, both FreeBSD and OpenBSD's do.
> 
> It seems that in 2009, FreeBSD sort was majorly rewritten, and in 2015
> imported to OpenBSD.
> 
> Has anyone look at adding --version-sort to our version? Or at
> switching to FreeBSD's, which has many more options supported?

It sounds like the behaviour of --version-sort is so inconsistent
across platforms it is not worthwhile to put any effort toward
implementing it.  If users want GNU's sorting algorithm in particular,
and not the other ones floating around, they can pull in GNU sort (and
hope it doesn't change from version to version).

(Whether FreeBSD's sort(1) is better and whether we should adopt it
for other reasons is a largely independent question, no idea about
that offhand.)