| sort(1) | General Commands Manual | sort(1) |
NAME¶
sort - Display sorted concatenation of all FILE(s). With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
SYNOPSIS¶
sort [--help] [--version] [--sort] [-h|--human-numeric-sort] [-M|--month-sort] [-n|--numeric-sort] [-g|--general-numeric-sort] [-V|--version-sort] [-R|--random-sort] [--random-source] [-d|--dictionary-order] [-m|--merge] [-c|--check] [-C|--check-silent] [-f|--ignore-case] [-i|--ignore-nonprinting] [-b|--ignore-leading-blanks] [-o|--output] [-r|--reverse] [-s|--stable] [-u|--unique] [-k|--key] [-t|--field-separator] [-z|--zero-terminated] [--parallel] [-S|--buffer-size] [-T|--temporary-directory] [--compress-program] [--batch-size] [--files0-from] [--debug] [files]
DESCRIPTION¶
Display sorted concatenation of all FILE(s). With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
OPTIONS¶
- --help
- Print help information.
- --version
- Print version information.
- --sort
-
[possible values: general-numeric, human-numeric, month, numeric, version, random]
- -h, --human-numeric-sort
- compare according to human readable sizes, eg 1M > 100k
- -M, --month-sort
- compare according to month name abbreviation
- -n, --numeric-sort
- compare according to string numerical value
- -g, --general-numeric-sort
- compare according to string general numerical value
- -V, --version-sort
- Sort by SemVer version number, eg 1.12.2 > 1.1.2
- -R, --random-sort
- shuffle in random order
- --random-source <FILE>
- sort-help-random-source
- -d, --dictionary-order
- consider only blanks and alphanumeric characters
- -m, --merge
- merge already sorted files; do not sort
- -c, --check
- check for sorted input; do not sort
[possible values: silent, quiet, diagnose-first]
- -C, --check-silent
- exit successfully if the given file is already sorted, and exit with status 1 otherwise.
- -f, --ignore-case
- fold lower case to upper case characters
- -i, --ignore-nonprinting
- ignore nonprinting characters
- -b, --ignore-leading-blanks
- ignore leading blanks when finding sort keys in each line
- -o, --output <FILENAME>
- write output to FILENAME instead of stdout
- -r, --reverse
- reverse the output
- -s, --stable
- stabilize sort by disabling last-resort comparison
- -u, --unique
- output only the first of an equal run
- -k, --key
- sort by a key
- -t, --field-separator
- custom separator for -k
- -z, --zero-terminated
- line delimiter is NUL, not newline
- --parallel <NUM_THREADS>
- change the number of threads running concurrently to NUM_THREADS
- -S, --buffer-size <SIZE>
- sets the maximum SIZE of each segment in number of sorted items
- -T, --temporary-directory <DIR>
- use DIR for temporaries, not $TMPDIR or /tmp
- --compress-program <PROG>
- compress temporary files with PROG, decompress with PROG -d; PROG has to take input from stdin and output to stdout
- --batch-size <N_MERGE>
- Merge at most N_MERGE inputs at once.
- --files0-from <NUL_FILE>
- read input from the files specified by NUL-terminated NUL_FILE
- --debug
- underline the parts of the line that are actually used for sorting
- [files]
EXTRA¶
The key format is FIELD[.CHAR][OPTIONS][,FIELD[.CHAR]][OPTIONS].
Fields by default are separated by the first whitespace after a non-whitespace character. Use -t to specify a custom separator. In the default case, whitespace is appended at the beginning of each field. Custom separators however are not included in fields.
FIELD and CHAR both start at 1 (i.e. they are 1-indexed). If there is no end specified after a comma, the end will be the end of the line. If CHAR is set 0, it means the end of the field. CHAR defaults to 1 for the start position and to 0 for the end position.
Valid options are: MbdfhnRrV. They override the global options for this key.
VERSION¶
v(uutils coreutils) 0.7.0
EXAMPLES¶
Sort a file in ascending order:
sort path/to/file
Sort a file in descending order:
sort [-r|--reverse] path/to/file
Sort a file in case-insensitive way:
sort [-f|--ignore-case] path/to/file
Sort a file using numeric rather than alphabetic order:
sort [-n|--numeric-sort] path/to/file
Sort `/etc/passwd` by the 3rd field onward of each line numerically, using `:` as a field separator:
sort [-t|--field-separator] : [-k|--key] 3n /etc/passwd
As above, but when items in the 3rd field are equal, sort by the 4th field by numbers with exponents:
sort [-t|--field-separator] : [-k|--key] 3,3n [-k|--key] 4,4g /etc/passwd
Sort a file preserving only unique lines:
sort [-u|--unique] path/to/file
Sort a file, printing the output to the specified output file (can be used to sort a file in-place):
sort [-o|--output] path/to/output_file path/to/input_file
The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project <https://tldr.sh> under the CC BY 4.0 License. Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail.
| sort (uutils coreutils) 0.7.0 |