SORT
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: March 2015
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NAME
sort - sort lines of text files
SYNOPSIS
sort
[
OPTION]... [
FILE]...
sort
[
OPTION]...
--files0-from=F
DESCRIPTION
Write sorted concatenation of all FILE(s) to standard output.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
Ordering options:
- -b, --ignore-leading-blanks
-
ignore leading blanks
- -d, --dictionary-order
-
consider only blanks and alphanumeric characters
- -f, --ignore-case
-
fold lower case to upper case characters
- -g, --general-numeric-sort
-
compare according to general numerical value
- -i, --ignore-nonprinting
-
consider only printable characters
- -M, --month-sort
-
compare (unknown) < 'JAN' < ... < 'DEC'
- -h, --human-numeric-sort
-
compare human readable numbers (e.g., 2K 1G)
- -n, --numeric-sort
-
compare according to string numerical value
- -R, --random-sort
-
sort by random hash of keys
- --random-source=FILE
-
get random bytes from FILE
- -r, --reverse
-
reverse the result of comparisons
- --sort=WORD
-
sort according to WORD:
general-numeric -g, human-numeric -h, month -M,
numeric -n, random -R, version -V
- -V, --version-sort
-
natural sort of (version) numbers within text
Other options:
- --batch-size=NMERGE
-
merge at most NMERGE inputs at once;
for more use temp files
- -c, --check, --check=diagnose-first
-
check for sorted input; do not sort
- -C, --check=quiet, --check=silent
-
like -c, but do not report first bad line
- --compress-program=PROG
-
compress temporaries with PROG;
decompress them with PROG -d
- --debug
-
annotate the part of the line used to sort,
and warn about questionable usage to stderr
- --files0-from=F
-
read input from the files specified by
NUL-terminated names in file F;
If F is - then read names from standard input
- -k, --key=KEYDEF
-
sort via a key; KEYDEF gives location and type
- -m, --merge
-
merge already sorted files; do not sort
- -o, --output=FILE
-
write result to FILE instead of standard output
- -s, --stable
-
stabilize sort by disabling last-resort comparison
- -S, --buffer-size=SIZE
-
use SIZE for main memory buffer
- -t, --field-separator=SEP
-
use SEP instead of non-blank to blank transition
- -T, --temporary-directory=DIR
-
use DIR for temporaries, not $TMPDIR or /tmp;
multiple options specify multiple directories
- --parallel=N
-
change the number of sorts run concurrently to N
- -u, --unique
-
with -c, check for strict ordering;
without -c, output only the first of an equal run
- -z, --zero-terminated
-
line delimiter is NUL, not newline
- --help
-
display this help and exit
- --version
-
output version information and exit
KEYDEF is F[.C][OPTS][,F[.C][OPTS]] for start and stop position, where F is a
field number and C a character position in the field; both are origin 1, and
the stop position defaults to the line's end. If neither -t nor -b is in
effect, characters in a field are counted from the beginning of the preceding
whitespace. OPTS is one or more single-letter ordering options [bdfgiMhnRrV],
which override global ordering options for that key. If no key is given, use
the entire line as the key.
SIZE may be followed by the following multiplicative suffixes:
% 1% of memory, b 1, K 1024 (default), and so on for M, G, T, P, E, Z, Y.
With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
*** WARNING ***
The locale specified by the environment affects sort order.
Set LC_ALL=C to get the traditional sort order that uses
native byte values.
AUTHOR
Written by Mike Haertel and Paul Eggert.
REPORTING BUGS
GNU coreutils online help: <
http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report sort translation bugs to <
http://translationproject.org/team/>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <
http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
SEE ALSO
uniq(1)
Full documentation at: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sort>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) sort invocation'
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- AUTHOR
-
- REPORTING BUGS
-
- COPYRIGHT
-
- SEE ALSO
-