Why doesn't **sort** sort the same on every machine?

Question

Using the same sort command with the same input produces different results on different machines. How do I fix that?

Answer 1

This can be the result of locale differences:

$ echo 'CO2_
CO_' | env LC_ALL=C sort
CO2_
CO_


$ echo 'CO2_
CO_' | env LC_ALL=en_US sort
CO_
CO2_

Setting the LC_ALL environment variable to the same value should correct the problem.