Does `netstat` output different sockets with and without -n?

Question

man netstat says

--numeric, -n

Show numerical addresses instead of trying to determine symbolic host, port or user names.

Does netstat output additional sockets with -n than without -n?

Or does netstat output the same set of sockets with -n as without -n?

They don't seem to output the same set of sockets:

$ sudo netstat -ap | wc -l
720
$ sudo netstat -anp | wc -l
719

-n seems to output sockets not shown otherwise:

$ sudo netstat -ap | grep 2049
$ sudo netstat -anp | grep 2049
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:2049            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -                   
tcp6       0      0 :::2049                 :::*                    LISTEN      -                   
udp        0      0 0.0.0.0:2049            0.0.0.0:*                           -                   
udp6       0      0 :::2049                 :::*      

Answer 1

It's likely that one of the ports from the 720 list was simply removed in-between those runs; there should be no substantive difference in the number of outputs with or without -n.

You're seeing different output with the grep 2049 because the -n flag specifically shows "numerical addresses instead of trying to determine symbolic host, port names"; if you had grepped for ":nfs" instead of "2049" in the second example, you would have seen corresponding results.