ls sorting of hidden files/directories not as in gnu ls

[alexkunde]

Hi, while investigating something else it became apperant that uutils/coreutils does not sort be default like gnu ls does.
Gnu seems to strip the leading dot and sort elements afterwards. Please see below:
(tested with 0.0.19 and latest gnu build)

mkdir .hidden-test
touch .zzz
mkdir test1
touch test2

# ubuntu provided ls
alex@alex-amd64-ubuntu:~/github/test3$ ls -al
total 16
drwxrwxr-x 4 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 .
drwxrwxr-x 9 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 .hidden-test
drwxrwxr-x 2 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 test1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 alex alex    0 Jun  9 08:19 test2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 alex alex    0 Jun  9 08:19 .zzz

# gnu compile from source
alex@alex-amd64-ubuntu:~/github/test3$ /home/alex/github/gnu/src/ls -al
total 16
drwxrwxr-x 4 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 .
drwxrwxr-x 9 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 .hidden-test
drwxrwxr-x 2 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 test1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 alex alex    0 Jun  9 08:19 test2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 alex alex    0 Jun  9 08:19 .zzz

# coreutils
alex@alex-amd64-ubuntu:~/github/test3$ /home/alex/github/coreutils/target/debug/ls -al
total 16
drwxrwxr-x 4 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 .
drwxrwxr-x 9 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 .hidden-test
-rw-rw-r-- 1 alex alex    0 Jun  9 08:19 .zzz
drwxrwxr-x 2 alex alex 4096 Jun  9 08:19 test1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 alex alex    0 Jun  9 08:19 test2

[tertsdiepraam]

True! But this is intentional. This was a big rabbit hole I dove into about 2 years ago. The reason for this GNU behaviour is locale. In the C locale, the sorting behaves like what we do. We don't currently have support for locale-based sorting, so we're sticking with that for now (until we do get around to locale-based sorting).

See also:

• ls: ignore leading period when sorting by name #2101
• "ls" returns different sort order, incorrect results for subdirectory listings. #2149
• Starting with localization #3997

[alexkunde]

Hi @tertsdiepraam. Thanks for the quick answer, I saw it's also mentioned in #1872, its just that the bulletpoint under sorting doesnt really speak to someone if you are not into the topic. Maybe an addition like "this also leads to sorting of .files/folders in a different order" can help us (me and other rookies).

[tertsdiepraam]

Good idea! I've made the explanation a bit longer. Let me know whether it's clearer now :)

[alexkunde]

Yes it is perfect, thank you!