Sort (Unix)

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sort is a standard Unix command line program that prints the lines of its input or concatenation of all files listed in it's argument list in sorted order. The -r flag will reverse the sort order.

Example of sort in action:

$ cat phonebook

Smith, Brett 555-4321 Doe, John 555-1234 Doe, Jane 555-3214 Avery, Cory 555-4321 Fogarty, Suzie 555-2314

$ cat phonebook | sort

Avery, Cory 555-4321 Doe, Jane 555-3214 Doe, John 555-1234 Fogarty, Suzie 555-2314 Smith, Brett 555-4321

The -n option makes the program to sort according to numerical value:

$ du /bin/* | sort -n

4 /bin/domainname 4 /bin/echo 4 /bin/hostname 4 /bin/pwd ... 24 /bin/ls 30 /bin/ps 44 /bin/ed 54 /bin/rmail 80 /bin/pax 102 /bin/sh 304 /bin/csh

The -n +1 option makes the program to sort according to numerical value, using the second column of data:

$ cat zipcode

Adam 12345 Bob 34567 Joe 56789 Sam 45678 Wendy 23456

$ cat zipcode | sort -n +1

Adam 12345 Wendy 23456 Bob 34567 Sam 45678 Joe 56789

The -r option just reverses the order of the sort:

$ cat zipcode | sort -nr +1

Joe 56789 Sam 45678 Bob 34567 Wendy 23456 Adam 12345

External links

[Online interface to the sort program]

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Unix command line programs ( [ view] • [ talk] • [ edit] )
File and file system management:	cat \| chdir/cd \| chmod \| chown \| chgrp \| cp \| du \| df \| fdupes \| file \| fsck \| ln \| ls \| lsof \| mkdir \| more \| mount \| mv \| pwd \| rcp \| rm \| rmdir \| split \| touch \| tree
Process management:	anacron \| at \| chroot \| cron/crontab \| kill \| nice \| ps \| sleep \| time \| timex \| top \| renice \| wait
User Management/Environment:	env \| finger \| id \| locale \| mesg \| passwd \| su \| sudo \| uname \| uptime \| w \| who \| write
Text processing:	awk \| cut \| diff \| ex \| head \| iconv \| join \| less \| more \| nkf \| paste \| sed \| sort \| tail \| tr \| uniq \| wc \| xargs
Shell programming:	echo \| expr \| unset	Printing:	lp
Communications: inetd \| netstat \| ping \| rlogin \| traceroute	Searching: egrep \| fgrep \| find \| grep \| strings	Miscellaneous: banner \| bc \| cal \| man \| uname \| wall \| yes

Sort (Unix)

See also

External links