My version of sort seems to have unpredictable behavior, based on the data being sorted:
$ sort <foo t te tec $ sort <foo t.co tec.co te.co $ sort <foo t.c te.c tec.c $ sort <foo t.co tec.co te.co $ sort <foo tec.o te.o t.o $ sort --version sort (GNU coreutils) 8.4 Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html >. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Written by Mike Haertel and Paul Eggert. -- Using flags -d, -n, -R, -r, and -i had no effect on this behavior. *Mike Bartman* *senior software engineer - platform* *tel* (415)-578-5222 x492 *email *michael.bart...@sparkpost.com