From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <5dbb79ad844dc05439e260be7dead23b@hamnavoe.com>
To: 9fans@9fans.net
From: Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com>
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:10:53 +0100
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Subject: Re: [9fans] sort strangeness
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 781de6aa-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

You probably want it to look at the rest of the line after sorting
according to the initial numeric string, like this:

cpu% cat tmp/sorttest
2
7
2.1
2.1.4
2.1.1
term% sort +0n +1 -t. -u tmp/sorttest
2
2.1
2.1.1
2.1.4
7

I think the "strangeness" you observed is consistent with what
the man page says:

          -n   An initial numeric string, consisting of optional white
               space, optional plus or minus sign, and zero or more
               digits with optional decimal point, is sorted by arith-
               metic value.
          -u         Suppress all but one in each set of equal lines.
                     Ignored bytes and bytes outside keys do not par-
                     ticipate in this comparison.