bash: Conditional expressions < and > do not perform as documented.

Binary package hint: bash

In the bash documentation, the conditional expression string1 > string2 is said to be true if string1 sorts after string2 lexicographically according to the current locale. However (example from 8.04):

bshotts@twin2:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 8.04.2
Release: 8.04

bshotts@twin2:~$ apt-cache policy bash
bash:
  Installed: 3.2-0ubuntu18
  Candidate: 3.2-0ubuntu18
  Version table:
 *** 3.2-0ubuntu18 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.2-0ubuntu16 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages

bshotts@twin2:~$ locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

bshotts@twin2:~$ [ 'b' \> 'a' ] && echo true # works
true
bshotts@twin2:~$ [ 'b' \> 'A' ] && echo true # works
true
bshotts@twin2:~$ [ 'B' \> 'a' ] && echo true # does not work, should be true
bshotts@twin2:~$ [ 'B' \> 'A' ] && echo true #works
true
bshotts@twin2:~$ [ 'Z' \> 'a' ] && echo true # does not work, should be true
bshotts@twin2:~$

The results of the third and fifth cases ( 'B' \> 'a' and 'Z' \> 'a' ) suggest that POSIX collation order is being used rather than the collation order for the current locale.