On 2024-05-05 16:26, Lawrence Velázquez wrote:
>> ... I don't know what to say.
> Seems like differing locales (which I overlooked earlier).  On
> Debian 12:
Man ... I dunno, maybe the world needs different sorting logic between 
Canada and the US but to me it just looks like making trouble.  Anyway 
kudos for figuring that out.

I would have expected:
>> aaa,6,
>> aaa,6a
>> aaa,6,howdy
>> aaa,6a,howdy
> Why?
Because at least the dictionary sort proceeds left to right with each 
subsequent character sorted as a sub-sort within the fixed sort arrived 
at by previous characters.  IOW as you move right, nothing ever changes 
to the left.  If 'aaa,6,' precedes 'aaa,6a' then every possible 
expansion of 'aaa,6,' will precede every possible expansion of 'aaa,6a'. 
It's the same as with numbers: every 2,xxx is greater than every 1,xxx.  
I suppose there's something in the version sort that interferes with 
that.  Mind ... (n) is not an explicit version sort, so what's the 
algorithm?  This gets interesting.  And ... Ooops, no, that's not what 
I'm expecting I'm expecting:

> aaa,6,
> aaa,6,howdy
> aaa,6a
> aaa,6a,howdy

... a few more tests ... 'sort -V' is different.  But '(n)' seems the 
same as 'sort -n':

aaa,6
aaa,6,
aaa,6a
aaa,6a,
aaa,6a,howdy
aaa,6,howdy    # I'd just like to know how this ends up last. I'd expect 
it 3d.  Both version sort and '(n)' agree that this is last. There will 
be an algorithm I'd just like to know what it is.