A slightly disturbing problem about items

[Dennis Brown]

Rob,

Put a comma in front of it ,1,2,3,4,5 and it makes sense.

Dennis

On Jun 4, 2005, at 10:44 PM, Rob Cozens wrote:

> Ken, et al,
>
>
>> The
>> reason you get two different values is that in your first example,  
>> the list
>> if items is "1,2,3,4,5," and ends in the item delimiter (,). Since  
>> there is
>> nothing that follows the item delimiter, it is ignored, and  
>> returns 5 items.
>> The second example gives you ",1,2,3,4,5" so there are 6 items  
>> (nothing's
>> ignored).
>>
>
> From my perspective, the focus of JB's issue is not the presence or  
> absence of a terminating comma, but if (the number of items of  
> "1,2,3,4,5,") is 5, why does (sort items of "1,2,3,4,5," ascending  
> numeric) sort 6 values instead of 5?
>
> It appears the sort command's definition of an item is different  
> than the "number of items of" syntax.
>
> Comments?
>
> Rob Cozens, Staff Conservator
> Mendonoma Marine Life Conservancy
>
> "It is contrary to human welfare to contribute in any way...
>  to the degradation of the sea's capacity to support life."
>
>  -- Walter Hickel, U. S. Secretary of the Interior, 1971
>     in "From Abundance to Scarcity" by Michael L. Weber
>
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