Understanding macOS vs Linux Sort Command Differences in Collation Behavior
By
g0xA52A2A
Pulled from the oven just right. Trustworthy, fact-dense, deeply satisfying.
Summary
The article documents a technical investigation into why the sort command produces different results on macOS versus Linux systems, even when using the same locale settings. The author discovers that macOS uses a different collation algorithm (LC_COLLATE) that treats hyphens differently than Linux systems, causing package names like 'python-dev' and 'python3-dev' to be sorted in reverse order. The article provides detailed technical analysis, code examples, and comparisons between the two operating systems' sorting behaviors.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledSame locale, different order (or technically, collation)
This is not even a difference between GNU and BSD userland; coreutils sort on macOS produces the same output as /usr/bin/sort
The difference is in the collation algorithm, not the locale data
macOS treats hyphen as a primary difference, while Linux treats it as a tertiary difference
This can cause real problems when dealing with sorted lists that need to be consistent across platforms
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