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Jean Jones and Bob Jones are not compared in full then?
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Not always. Consider a large database being sorted on one or a few fields. The rest of the data (fields) are still there. Sometimes one wants them to maintain their previous order within the sort, sometimes one doesn't care. Rather than sort on a primary field and a secondary field, one could sort on first name, THEN sort on last name, and achieve the same results IF the sort was stable.