Re: Sort behaves differently: cron vs. user shell

[John Ellson <ellson research att com>]

W. Michael Petullo wrote:
> I recently made an entry in Bugzilla (# 204562) for the following problem:
>
> /bin/sort uses the LC_ALL environment variable to determine how to sort.  There
> seems to be a discrepancy between how this variable is set in a user shell and
> cron's environment.  
>
> The bottom line is that this causes scripts to behave differently when
> run in a user shell vs. cron.
>
> My bug was closed as "isn't definitely problem of cron."
>
> I do think this is a bug.  A script that uses sort should execute the
> same when run by a user or on behalf of a user by cron.  What component
> should this be be filed under?
>
>   
Cron doesn't automatically run the user's .profile or .bash_profile,
so the environment is likely different in the cron job.

Probably the safest fix is to always run sort with:
   LC_COLLATE=C sort .....

John