man/man1/sort.1 - plan9 - Git at Google

 .TH SORT 1
 .SH NAME
 sort \- sort and/or merge files
 .SH SYNOPSIS
 .B sort
 [
 .BI -cmuMbdf\&inrwt x
 ]
 [
 .BI + pos1
 [
 .BI - pos2
 ] ...
 ] ...
 [
 .B -k
 .I pos1
 [
 .I ,pos2
 ]
 ] ...
 .br
 \h'0.5in'
 [
 .B -o
 .I output
 ]
 [
 .B -T
 .I dir
 \&...
 ]
 [
 .I option
 \&...
 ]
 [
 .I file
 \&...
 ]
 .SH DESCRIPTION
 .I Sort\^
 sorts
 lines of all the
 .I files
 together and writes the result on
 the standard output.
 If no input files are named, the standard input is sorted.
 .PP
 The default sort key is an entire line.
 Default ordering is
 lexicographic by runes.
 The ordering is affected globally by the following options,
 one or more of which may appear.
 .TP
 .B -M
 Compare as months.
 The first three
 non-white space characters
 of the field
 are folded
 to upper case
 and compared
 so that
 .L JAN
 precedes
 .LR FEB ,
 etc.
 Invalid fields
 compare low to
 .LR JAN .
 .TP
 .B -b
 Ignore leading white space (spaces and tabs) in field comparisons.
 .TP
 .B -d
 `Phone directory' order:
 only letters,
 accented letters,
 digits and white space
 are significant in comparisons.
 .TP
 .B -f
 Fold lower case
 letters onto upper case.
 Accented characters are folded to their
 non-accented upper case form.
 .TP
 .B -i
 Ignore characters outside the
 .SM ASCII
 range 040-0176
 in non-numeric comparisons.
 .TP
 .B -w
 Like
 .BR -i ,
 but ignore only tabs and spaces.
 .TP
 .B -n
 An initial numeric string,
 consisting of optional white space,
 optional plus or minus sign,
 and zero or more digits with optional decimal point,
 is sorted by arithmetic value.
 .TP
 .B -g
 Numbers, like
 .B -n
 but with optional
 .BR e -style
 exponents, are sorted by value.
 .TP
 .B -r
 Reverse the sense of comparisons.
 .TP
 .BI -t x\^
 `Tab character' separating fields is
 .IR x .
 .PP
 The notation
 .BI + "pos1\| " - pos2\^
 restricts a sort key to a field beginning at
 .I pos1\^
 and ending just before
 .IR pos2 .
 .I Pos1\^
 and
 .I pos2\^
 each have the form
 .IB m . n\f1,
 optionally followed by one or more of the flags
 .BR Mbdfginr ,
 where
 .I m\^
 tells a number of fields to skip from the beginning of the line and
 .I n\^
 tells a number of characters to skip further.
 If any flags are present they override all the global
 ordering options for this key.
 A missing
 .BI \&. n\^
 means
 .BR \&.0 ;
 a missing
 .BI - pos2\^
 means the end of the line.
 Under the
 .BI -t x\^
 option, fields are strings separated by
 .IR x ;
 otherwise fields are
 non-empty strings separated by white space.
 White space before a field
 is part of the field, except under option
 .BR -b .
 A
 .B b
 flag may be attached independently to
 .IR pos1
 and
 .IR pos2.
 .PP
 The notation
 .B -k
 .IR pos1 [, pos2 ]
 is how POSIX
 .I sort
 defines fields:
 .I pos1
 and
 .I pos2
 have the same format but different meanings.
 The value of
 .I  m\^
 is origin 1 instead of origin 0
 and a missing
 .BI \&. n\^
 in
 .I pos2
 is the end of the field.
 .PP
 When there are multiple sort keys, later keys
 are compared only after all earlier keys
 compare equal.
 Lines that otherwise compare equal are ordered
 with all bytes significant.
 .PP
 These option arguments are also understood:
 .TP \w'\fL-z\fIrecsize\fLXX'u
 .B -c
 Check that the single input file is sorted according to the ordering rules;
 give no output unless the file is out of sort.
 .TP
 .B -m
 Merge; assume the input files are already sorted.
 .TP
 .B -u
 Suppress all but one in each
 set of equal lines.
 Ignored bytes
 and bytes outside keys
 do not participate in
 this comparison.
 .TP
 .B -o
 The next argument is the name of an output file
 to use instead of the standard output.
 This file may be the same as one of the inputs.
 .TP
 .BI -T dir
 Put temporary files in
 .I dir
 rather than in
 .BR /var/tmp .
 .ne 4
 .SH EXAMPLES
 .TP
 .L sort -u +0f +0 list
 Print in alphabetical order all the unique spellings
 in a list of words
 where capitalized words differ from uncapitalized.
 .TP
 .L sort -t: +1 /adm/users
 Print the users file
 sorted by user name
 (the second colon-separated field).
 .TP
 .L sort -umM dates
 Print the first instance of each month in an already sorted file.
 Options
 .B -um
 with just one input file make the choice of a
 unique representative from a set of equal lines predictable.
 .TP
 .L
 grep -n '^' input | sort -t: +1f +0n | sed 's/[0-9]*://'
 A stable sort: input lines that compare equal will
 come out in their original order.
 .SH FILES
 .BI /var/tmp/sort. <pid>.<ordinal>
 .SH SOURCE
 .B \*9/src/cmd/sort.c
 .SH SEE ALSO
 .IR uniq (1),
 .IR look (1)
 .SH DIAGNOSTICS
 .I Sort
 comments and exits with non-null status for various trouble
 conditions and for disorder discovered under option
 .BR -c .
 .SH BUGS
 An external null character can be confused
 with an internally generated end-of-field character.
 The result can make a sub-field not sort
 less than a longer field.
 .PP
 Some of the options, e.g.
 .B -i
 and
 .BR -M ,
 are hopelessly provincial.
	.TH SORT 1
	.SH NAME
	sort \- sort and/or merge files
	.SH SYNOPSIS
	.B sort
	[
	.BI -cmuMbdf\&inrwt x
	]
	[
	.BI + pos1
	[
	.BI - pos2
	] ...
	] ...
	[
	.B -k
	.I pos1
	[
	.I ,pos2
	]
	] ...
	.br
	\h'0.5in'
	[
	.B -o
	.I output
	]
	[
	.B -T
	.I dir
	\&...
	]
	[
	.I option
	\&...
	]
	[
	.I file
	\&...
	]
	.SH DESCRIPTION
	.I Sort\^
	sorts
	lines of all the
	.I files
	together and writes the result on
	the standard output.
	If no input files are named, the standard input is sorted.
	.PP
	The default sort key is an entire line.
	Default ordering is
	lexicographic by runes.
	The ordering is affected globally by the following options,
	one or more of which may appear.
	.TP
	.B -M
	Compare as months.
	The first three
	non-white space characters
	of the field
	are folded
	to upper case
	and compared
	so that
	.L JAN
	precedes
	.LR FEB ,
	etc.
	Invalid fields
	compare low to
	.LR JAN .
	.TP
	.B -b
	Ignore leading white space (spaces and tabs) in field comparisons.
	.TP
	.B -d
	`Phone directory' order:
	only letters,
	accented letters,
	digits and white space
	are significant in comparisons.
	.TP
	.B -f
	Fold lower case
	letters onto upper case.
	Accented characters are folded to their
	non-accented upper case form.
	.TP
	.B -i
	Ignore characters outside the
	.SM ASCII
	range 040-0176
	in non-numeric comparisons.
	.TP
	.B -w
	Like
	.BR -i ,
	but ignore only tabs and spaces.
	.TP
	.B -n
	An initial numeric string,
	consisting of optional white space,
	optional plus or minus sign,
	and zero or more digits with optional decimal point,
	is sorted by arithmetic value.
	.TP
	.B -g
	Numbers, like
	.B -n
	but with optional
	.BR e -style
	exponents, are sorted by value.
	.TP
	.B -r
	Reverse the sense of comparisons.
	.TP
	.BI -t x\^
	`Tab character' separating fields is
	.IR x .
	.PP
	The notation
	.BI + "pos1\\| " - pos2\^
	restricts a sort key to a field beginning at
	.I pos1\^
	and ending just before
	.IR pos2 .
	.I Pos1\^
	and
	.I pos2\^
	each have the form
	.IB m . n\f1,
	optionally followed by one or more of the flags
	.BR Mbdfginr ,
	where
	.I m\^
	tells a number of fields to skip from the beginning of the line and
	.I n\^
	tells a number of characters to skip further.
	If any flags are present they override all the global
	ordering options for this key.
	A missing
	.BI \&. n\^
	means
	.BR \&.0 ;
	a missing
	.BI - pos2\^
	means the end of the line.
	Under the
	.BI -t x\^
	option, fields are strings separated by
	.IR x ;
	otherwise fields are
	non-empty strings separated by white space.
	White space before a field
	is part of the field, except under option
	.BR -b .
	A
	.B b
	flag may be attached independently to
	.IR pos1
	and
	.IR pos2.
	.PP
	The notation
	.B -k
	.IR pos1 [, pos2 ]
	is how POSIX
	.I sort
	defines fields:
	.I pos1
	and
	.I pos2
	have the same format but different meanings.
	The value of
	.I m\^
	is origin 1 instead of origin 0
	and a missing
	.BI \&. n\^
	in
	.I pos2
	is the end of the field.
	.PP
	When there are multiple sort keys, later keys
	are compared only after all earlier keys
	compare equal.
	Lines that otherwise compare equal are ordered
	with all bytes significant.
	.PP
	These option arguments are also understood:
	.TP \w'\fL-z\fIrecsize\fLXX'u
	.B -c
	Check that the single input file is sorted according to the ordering rules;
	give no output unless the file is out of sort.
	.TP
	.B -m
	Merge; assume the input files are already sorted.
	.TP
	.B -u
	Suppress all but one in each
	set of equal lines.
	Ignored bytes
	and bytes outside keys
	do not participate in
	this comparison.
	.TP
	.B -o
	The next argument is the name of an output file
	to use instead of the standard output.
	This file may be the same as one of the inputs.
	.TP
	.BI -T dir
	Put temporary files in
	.I dir
	rather than in
	.BR /var/tmp .
	.ne 4
	.SH EXAMPLES
	.TP
	.L sort -u +0f +0 list
	Print in alphabetical order all the unique spellings
	in a list of words
	where capitalized words differ from uncapitalized.
	.TP
	.L sort -t: +1 /adm/users
	Print the users file
	sorted by user name
	(the second colon-separated field).
	.TP
	.L sort -umM dates
	Print the first instance of each month in an already sorted file.
	Options
	.B -um
	with just one input file make the choice of a
	unique representative from a set of equal lines predictable.
	.TP
	.L
	grep -n '^' input \| sort -t: +1f +0n \| sed 's/[0-9]*://'
	A stable sort: input lines that compare equal will
	come out in their original order.
	.SH FILES
	.BI /var/tmp/sort. <pid>.<ordinal>
	.SH SOURCE
	.B \*9/src/cmd/sort.c
	.SH SEE ALSO
	.IR uniq (1),
	.IR look (1)
	.SH DIAGNOSTICS
	.I Sort
	comments and exits with non-null status for various trouble
	conditions and for disorder discovered under option
	.BR -c .
	.SH BUGS
	An external null character can be confused
	with an internally generated end-of-field character.
	The result can make a sub-field not sort
	less than a longer field.
	.PP
	Some of the options, e.g.
	.B -i
	and
	.BR -M ,
	are hopelessly provincial.