Hi,

I have reason to believe that Windows' built-in SORT command is buggy. I'm experiencing it with XP SP1 with all current updates (Aug.20.06).

Here's one way to reproduce it:

create a text file containing this:

a
A
B
b
r
R
S
s
X
x
Y
y
z
Z

As you can see it only has a mix of a few upper and lower case letters. It is very simple to make it easier to see the bug. Save it (eg: foo.txt) and open a command prompt. Type "type foo.txt" then type "sort foo.txt". The sorted one SHOULD display this:

A
a
B
b
R
r
S
s
X
x
Y
y
Z
z

But it displays this instead:

A
a
B
b
R
r
s
S
X
x
y
Y
Z
z

The S and Y are not sorted correctly.

I've got an even worse example. I created three files, each with every ASCII character from the space to the tilde (32-126) by itself on a separate line, but not in the same order. I then sorted each file, expecting the three to now be identical, but they were not!!! The above problem manifested in the files. Some of the letters were out of order, but only in some of the files, in some they were correct.

What the heck is going on? Can anyone reproduce it to confirm it's buggy?

:confused:

Thanks.