Consider the following text file:
$ cat input4 8.10 8.5 8.1 8.01 8.010 8.100 8.49 Numerical Sort: Version Sort: $ sort -n input4 $ sort -V input4 8.01 8.01 8.010 8.1 8.1 8.5 8.10 8.010 8.100 8.10 8.49 8.49 8.5 8.100
Numeric sort (‘sort -n’) treats the entire string as a single numeric value, and compares it to other values. For example, ‘8.1’, ‘8.10’ and ‘8.100’ are numerically equivalent, and are ordered together. Similarly, ‘8.49’ is numerically less than ‘8.5’, and appears before first.
Version sort (‘sort -V’) first breaks down the string into digit and non-digit parts, and only then compares each part (see annotated example in Version-sort ordering rules).
Comparing the string ‘8.1’ to ‘8.01’, first the ‘8’s are compared (and are identical), then the dots (‘.’) are compared and are identical, and lastly the remaining digits are compared numerically (‘1’ and ‘01’) – which are numerically equal. Hence, ‘8.01’ and ‘8.1’ are grouped together.
Similarly, comparing ‘8.5’ to ‘8.49’ – the ‘8’ and ‘.’ parts are identical, then the numeric values ‘5’ and ‘49’ are compared. The resulting ‘5’ appears before ‘49’.
This sorting order (where ‘8.5’ comes before ‘8.49’) is common when assigning versions to computer programs (while perhaps not intuitive or “natural” for people).