Field delimiter in sort program in freebsd

[John Levine]

>Using \xff as the record separator makes sense for binary files. Any idea
>why there is such a condition in the sort program?

Probably because its authors implemented the POSIX spec for the sort utility,
which sorts text files.

If you want to sort binary stuff using the standard sort program, turn it into text,
sort it, and turn it back.  Or write your own specialized binary sort.

R's,
John