Shouldn't that be the case? Anyway, I thought maybe there is some special characters of some sort so I did a strings and it is still the same :(. What am I missing?
I have also tried sort -t"|" -k1. It's the same problem. I am confused. BTW, I thought maybe 'coz I am using a pipe (|) as the delimiter. I change them to a comma (,) and it is still the same. Please advise.
Not sure if this is what you are after. That is my first thought too, there is a special / hidden / unprintable character somewhere.
Please find below echo and the sort and OS flavor.
The one that RudiC suggested works find. I've also uploaded the test.txt file if you still want to give it a go.
$ echo 'SYS|PSTUBTBL|TABLE' | od -c
0000000 S Y S | P S T U B T B L | T A B
0000020 L E \n
0000023
$ echo 'SYS|WRI$_ADV_ASA_RECO_DATA|TABLE' | od -c
0000000 S Y S | W R I $ _ A D V _ A S A
0000020 _ R E C O _ D A T A | T A B L E
0000040 \n
0000041
$ view xx.txt
$ echo 'SYSTEM|OL$HINTS|TABLE' | od -c
0000000 S Y S T E M | O L $ H I N T S |
0000020 T A B L E \n
0000026
$ echo 'SYSTEM|OL$NODES|TABLE' | od -c
0000000 S Y S T E M | O L $ N O D E S |
0000020 T A B L E \n
0000026
$ sort -t"|" -k1,1 test.txt
MDSYS|OGIS_GEOMETRY_COLUMNS|TABLE
MDSYS|OGIS_SPATIAL_REFERENCE_SYSTEMS|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_IDX_TAB_SEQUENCE|SEQUENCE
MDSYS|SDO_PREFERRED_OPS_USER|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_ST_TOLERANCE|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_TOPO_DATA$|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_TOPO_RELATION_DATA|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_TOPO_TRANSACT_DATA$|VIEW
MDSYS|SDO_TXN_IDX_DELETES|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_TXN_IDX_EXP_UPD_RGN|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_TXN_IDX_INSERTS|TABLE
MDSYS|SRSNAMESPACE_TABLE|TABLE
MDSYS|USER_ANNOTATION_TEXT_METADATA|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_3DTHEMES|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_3DTXFMS|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_ANIMATIONS|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_CACHED_MAPS|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_GEOM_METADATA|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_LIGHTSOURCES|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_LRS_METADATA|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_MAPS|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_SCENES|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_STYLES|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_THEMES|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_VIEWFRAMES|VIEW
ORDDATA|ORDDCM_CONFORMANCE_VLD_MSGS|VIEW
OUTLN|OL$HINTS|TABLE
OUTLN|OL$NODES|TABLE
SYS|DATA_PUMP_XPL_TABLE$|TABLE
SYS|IMPDP_STATS|INDEX
SYS|IMPDP_STATS|TABLE
SYS|KU$_DATAPUMP_MASTER_10_1|TABLE
SYS|KU$_DATAPUMP_MASTER_11_1_0_7|TABLE
SYS|KU$_DATAPUMP_MASTER_11_1|TABLE
SYS|KU$_DATAPUMP_MASTER_11_2|TABLE
SYS|KU$_LIST_FILTER_TEMP_2|TABLE
SYS|KU$_LIST_FILTER_TEMP|TABLE
SYS|KU$NOEXP_TAB|TABLE
SYS|KU$XKTFBUE|TABLE
SYS|ODCI_SECOBJ$|TABLE
SYS|ODCI_WARNINGS$|TABLE
SYS|PLAN_TABLE$|TABLE
SYS|PSTUBTBL|TABLE
SYS|WRI$_ADV_ASA_RECO_DATA|TABLE
SYSTEM|OL$HINTS|TABLE
SYSTEM|OL$NODES|TABLE
XDB|PATH_VIEW|VIEW
XDB|RESOURCE_VIEW|VIEW
XDB|XDB$ACL|TABLE
XDB|XDB$IMPORT_TT_INFO|TABLE
XDB|XDB$RESCONFIG|TABLE
XDB|XDB$XIDX_IMP_T|TABLE
$ sort test.txt
MDSYS|OGIS_GEOMETRY_COLUMNS|TABLE
MDSYS|OGIS_SPATIAL_REFERENCE_SYSTEMS|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_IDX_TAB_SEQUENCE|SEQUENCE
MDSYS|SDO_PREFERRED_OPS_USER|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_ST_TOLERANCE|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_TOPO_DATA$|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_TOPO_RELATION_DATA|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_TOPO_TRANSACT_DATA$|VIEW
MDSYS|SDO_TXN_IDX_DELETES|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_TXN_IDX_EXP_UPD_RGN|TABLE
MDSYS|SDO_TXN_IDX_INSERTS|TABLE
MDSYS|SRSNAMESPACE_TABLE|TABLE
MDSYS|USER_ANNOTATION_TEXT_METADATA|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_3DTHEMES|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_3DTXFMS|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_ANIMATIONS|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_CACHED_MAPS|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_GEOM_METADATA|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_LIGHTSOURCES|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_LRS_METADATA|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_MAPS|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_SCENES|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_STYLES|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_THEMES|VIEW
MDSYS|USER_SDO_VIEWFRAMES|VIEW
ORDDATA|ORDDCM_CONFORMANCE_VLD_MSGS|VIEW
OUTLN|OL$HINTS|TABLE
OUTLN|OL$NODES|TABLE
SYS|DATA_PUMP_XPL_TABLE$|TABLE
SYS|IMPDP_STATS|INDEX
SYS|IMPDP_STATS|TABLE
SYS|KU$_DATAPUMP_MASTER_10_1|TABLE
SYS|KU$_DATAPUMP_MASTER_11_1_0_7|TABLE
SYS|KU$_DATAPUMP_MASTER_11_1|TABLE
SYS|KU$_DATAPUMP_MASTER_11_2|TABLE
SYS|KU$_LIST_FILTER_TEMP_2|TABLE
SYS|KU$_LIST_FILTER_TEMP|TABLE
SYS|KU$NOEXP_TAB|TABLE
SYS|KU$XKTFBUE|TABLE
SYS|ODCI_SECOBJ$|TABLE
SYS|ODCI_WARNINGS$|TABLE
SYS|PLAN_TABLE$|TABLE
SYS|PSTUBTBL|TABLE
SYSTEM|OL$HINTS|TABLE
SYSTEM|OL$NODES|TABLE
SYS|WRI$_ADV_ASA_RECO_DATA|TABLE
XDB|PATH_VIEW|VIEW
XDB|RESOURCE_VIEW|VIEW
XDB|XDB$ACL|TABLE
XDB|XDB$IMPORT_TT_INFO|TABLE
XDB|XDB$RESCONFIG|TABLE
XDB|XDB$XIDX_IMP_T|TABLE
$ uname -a
Linux [hostname] 2.6.18-419.el5 #1 SMP Wed Feb 22 22:40:57 EST 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ cat redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.11 (Tikanga)
