diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/coreutils.texi | 11 |
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi index 6a671bb8e..47c63db79 100644 --- a/doc/coreutils.texi +++ b/doc/coreutils.texi @@ -4022,7 +4022,7 @@ sort [@var{option}]@dots{} [@var{file}]@dots{} Many options affect how @command{sort} compares lines; if the results are unexpected, try the @option{--debug} option to see what happened. A pair of lines is compared as follows: -@command{sort} compares each pair of fields, in the +@command{sort} compares each pair of fields (see @option{--key}), in the order specified on the command line, according to the associated ordering options, until a difference is found or no fields are left. If no key fields are specified, @command{sort} uses a default key of @@ -4332,7 +4332,14 @@ Specify a sort field that consists of the part of the line between @var{pos1} and @var{pos2} (or the end of the line, if @var{pos2} is omitted), @emph{inclusive}. -Each @var{pos} has the form @samp{@var{f}[.@var{c}][@var{opts}]}, +In its simplest form @var{pos} specifies a field number (starting with 1), +with fields being separated by runs of blank characters, and by default +those blanks being included in the comparison at the start of each field. +To adjust the handling of blank characters see the @option{-b} and +@option{-t} options. + +More generally, +each @var{pos} has the form @samp{@var{f}[.@var{c}][@var{opts}]}, where @var{f} is the number of the field to use, and @var{c} is the number of the first character from the beginning of the field. Fields and character positions are numbered starting with 1; a character position of zero in |