feature idea -- initial inquiry

[Tom Lord]

It seems to me that on a GNU system, the sorted output produced by
`ls' should also always be producible by passing the names to be
sorted through `sort'.  It should be, in principle, possible to
implement GNU `ls' as a program that pipes its output through GNU
`sort'.

In the arch revision control system project, we are interested in
sorting multi-level version numbers.  For example, this output is
sorted:


        1.2
        1.2.1
        1.22
        1.123



GNU `ls' has the ability to sort filenames containing version numbers
of those forms.   GNU `sort' does not.

What do the GNU textutils and GNU fileutils maintainers think of the
idea of:

1) nailing down the syntax and sort order of version numbers
   in a standard that applies across GNU utils

2) adding to `sort' an option that allows a field to be a version
   number

3) making sure that `ls' and `sort' both adhere to the standard in (1)


We (the `arch' project) may or may not have the manpower to produce
such a patch -- but before we decide if we do, we're wondering if you
would accept it.


-t