Re: perllocale weirdness, bug, or...?

[Krambambuli]

Thanks - I've done this already, but it's not explaining the supposed non-sensical ordering I see.

I've made some progress in the meantime however - it seems a problem with how exactly collate is done when LC_COLLATE = en_US.UTF-8 and not a Perl problem. But I'm still have to understand how it comes that a sort with this collation gives
_
2
a
a2
a_2
a_2.
a2.

instead of what I would feel as 'logical' to be
_
2
a
a_2
a_2.
a2
a2.
---
(Update): sorry, misplaced this answer, it should have been a reply to thundergnat's note.

[aquarium]

if using unicode (utf-8) as locale, also make sure your data, including input and output streams match. as you might still be experiencing certain "bits" in the whole setup not being utf-8. also check your locale settings at system/root level, and compare with the logged in user. i've seen weirdness come from that. also make sure there's no special other perl only system variables set, that could interfere.