The POSIX description of the -b flag for the sort command isIgnore leading  characters when determining the starting and ending positions of a restricted sort key.I can understand the use for the starting position of the key, but what about the ending positions? Can anybody give an example?For instance, with the locale set to POSIX, the file with contentx  zx awould be sorted differently under sort -k 2 and sort -k 2b, but I haven't been able to come up with a case where, say, sort -k 2,3b and sort -k 2,3 would make a difference.
When do `sort -k 2,3b` and `sort -k 2,3` differ?
sort;utilities
It has an effect when you add reverse to the comparison. Order of precedence are changed as in the -r only apply to last-resort comparison.No reverse:$ sort -k 1,2 sampleA  34A 33$ sort -k 1,2b sampleA  34A 33Reverse:$ sort -rk 1,2 sampleA 33A  34$ sort -rk 1,2b sampleA  34A 33