Linux man pages

Section (1) sort

Linux manual pages	Section 1

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.

With no FILE, or when FILE is −, read standard input.

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) < _zsingle_quotesz_JAN_zsingle_quotesz_ < ... < _zsingle_quotesz_DEC_zsingle_quotesz_
−h, −−human−numeric−sort: compare human readable numbers (e.g., 2K 1G)
−n, −−numeric−sort: compare according to string numerical value
−R, −−random−sort: shuffle, but group identical keys. See shuf(1)
−−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_zsingle_quotesz_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. Use −−debug to diagnose incorrect key usage.

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.

*** 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: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>

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