sort: new --human-numeric-sort option to sort KiB MB etc.

* NEWS: Document the new option
* doc/coreutils.texi (sort invocation): ditto
* src/sort.c (main): handle the new --human-numeric-sort option (-h).
(human_numcompare): A new function to compare SI and IEC suffixes
before falling back to the standard --numeric comparison.
(find_unit_order): A new helper function to find the order
of magnitude of a number string as determined by its suffix.
(check_mixed_SI_IEC): A new helper function to exit with error
if both SI and IEC suffixes are presented.
* tests/misc/sort: Add 8 tests to test the new functionality.
* THANKS: Update

1 files changed, 15 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index 97ea830e1..834bd462c 100644
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -3785,6 +3785,21 @@ Use this option only if there is no alternative; it is much slower than
 @option{--numeric-sort} (@option{-n}) and it can lose information when
 converting to floating point.
 
+@item -h
+@itemx --human-numeric-sort
+@itemx --sort=human-numeric
+@opindex -h
+@opindex --human-numeric-sort
+@opindex --sort
+@cindex human numeric sort
+@vindex LC_NUMERIC
+Sort numerically, as per the @option{--numeric-sort} option below, and in
+addition handle IEC or SI suffixes like MiB, MB etc (@ref{Block size}).
+Note a mixture of IEC and SI suffixes is not supported and will
+be flagged as an error.  Also the numbers must be abbreviated uniformly.
+I.E. values with different precisions like 6000K and 5M will be sorted
+incorrectly.
+
 @item -i
 @itemx --ignore-nonprinting
 @opindex -i