.\" $OpenBSD: sort.1,v 1.11 2000/07/06 04:06:56 aaron Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by .\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by the University of .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)sort.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 .\" .Dd June 6, 1993 .Dt SORT 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm sort .Nd sort or merge text files .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm sort .Op Fl cmubdfinrH .Op Fl t Ar char .Op Fl R Ar char .Oo .Cm Fl k Ar field1[,field2] .Oc .Ar ... .Op Fl T Ar dir .Op Fl o Ar output .Op Ar file .Ar ... .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm utility sorts text files by lines. Comparisons are based on one or more sort keys extracted from each line of input, and are performed lexicographically. By default, if keys are not given, .Nm regards each input line as a single field. .Pp The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width file indent .It Fl c Check that the single input file is sorted. If the file is not sorted, .Nm produces the appropriate error messages and exits with code 1; otherwise, .Nm returns 0. .Nm .Fl c produces no output, except the error messages on .Em stderr . .It Fl m Merge only; the input files are assumed to be pre-sorted. .It Fl o Ar output The argument given is the name of an .Ar output file to be used instead of the standard output. This file can be the same as one of the input files. .It Fl T Ar dir Use .Ar dir as the directory for temporary files. The default is the contents of the environment variable .Ev TMPDIR or .Pa /var/tmp if .Ev TMPDIR does not exist. .It Fl u Unique: suppress all but one in each set of lines having equal keys. If used with the .Fl c option, check that there are no lines with duplicate keys. .El .Pp The following options override the default ordering rules. When ordering options appear independent of key field specifications, the requested field ordering rules are applied globally to all sort keys. When attached to a specific key (see .Fl k ) , the ordering options override all global ordering options for that key. .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fl d Only blank space and alphanumeric characters .\" according .\" to the current setting of LC_CTYPE are used in making comparisons. .It Fl f Considers all lowercase characters that have uppercase equivalents to be the same for purposes of comparison. .It Fl i Ignore all non-printable characters. .It Fl n An initial numeric string, consisting of optional blank space, optional minus sign, and zero or more digits (including decimal point) .\" with .\" optional radix character and thousands .\" separator .\" (as defined in the current locale), is sorted by arithmetic value. (The .Fl n option no longer implies the .Fl b option.) .It Fl r Reverse the sense of comparisons. .It Fl H Use a merge sort instead of a radix sort. This options should be used for files larger than 60Mb. .El .Pp The treatment of field separators can be altered using these options: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fl b Ignores leading blank space when determining the start and end of a restricted sort key. A .Fl b option specified before the first .Fl k option applies globally to all .Fl k options. Otherwise, the .Fl b option can be attached independently to each .Ar field argument of the .Fl k option (see below). Note that the .Fl b option has no effect unless key fields are specified. .It Fl t Ar char .Ar char is used as the field separator character. The initial .Ar char is not considered to be part of a field when determining key offsets. Each occurrence of .Ar char is significant (for example, .Dq Ar charchar delimits an empty field). If .Fl t is not specified, the default field separator is a sequence of blank-space characters, and consecutive blank spaces do .Em not delimit an empty field; further, the initial blank space .Em is considered part of a field when determining key offsets. .It Fl R Ar char .Ar char is used as the record separator character. This should be used with discretion; .Fl R Ar <alphanumeric> usually produces undesirable results. The default record separator is newline. .It Fl k Ar field1[,field2] Designates the starting position, .Ar field1 , and optional ending position, .Ar field2 , of a key field. The .Fl k option replaces the obsolescent options .Cm \(pl Ns Ar pos1 and .Fl Ns Ar pos2 . .El .Pp The following operands are available: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Ar file The pathname of a file to be sorted, merged, or checked. If no .Ar file operands are specified, or if a .Ar file operand is .Fl , the standard input is used. .El .Pp A field is defined as a maximal sequence of characters other than the field separator and record separator .Pq newline by default . Initial blank spaces are included in the field unless .Fl b has been specified; the first blank space of a sequence of blank spaces acts as the field separator and is included in the field (unless .Fl t is specified). For example, by default all blank spaces at the beginning of a line are considered to be part of the first field. .Pp Fields are specified by the .Fl k Ar field1[,field2] argument. A missing .Ar field2 argument defaults to the end of a line. .Pp The arguments .Ar field1 and .Ar field2 have the form .Em m.n .Em (m,n > 0) and can be followed by one or more of the letters .Cm b , d , f , i , .Cm n , and .Cm r , which correspond to the options discussed above. A .Ar field1 position specified by .Em m.n is interpreted as the .Em n Ns th character from the beginning of the .Em m Ns th field. A missing .Em \&.n in .Ar field1 means .Ql \&.1 , indicating the first character of the .Em m Ns th field; if the .Fl b option is in effect, .Em n is counted from the first non-blank character in the .Em m Ns th field; .Em m Ns \&.1b refers to the first non-blank character in the .Em m Ns th field. .No 1\&. Ns Em n refers to the .Em n Ns th character from the beginning of the line; if .Em n is greater than the length of the line, the field is taken to be empty. .Pp A .Ar field2 position specified by .Em m.n is interpreted as the .Em n Ns th character (including separators) of the .Em m Ns th field. A missing .Em \&.n indicates the last character of the .Em m Ns th field; .Em m = \&0 designates the end of a line. Thus the option .Fl k Ar v.x,w.y is synonymous with the obsolescent option .Cm \(pl Ns Ar v-\&1.x-\&1 .Fl Ns Ar w-\&1.y ; when .Em y is omitted, .Fl k Ar v.x,w is synonymous with .Cm \(pl Ns Ar v-\&1.x-\&1 .Fl Ns Ar w+1.0 . The obsolescent .Cm \(pl Ns Ar pos1 .Fl Ns Ar pos2 option is still supported, except for .Fl Ns Ar w\&.0b , which has no .Fl k equivalent. .Pp The .Nm utility shall exit with one of the following values: .Pp .Bl -tag -width flag -compact .It 0 Normal behavior. .It 1 On disorder (or non-uniqueness) with the .Fl c option. .It 2 An error occurred. .El .Sh ENVIRONMENT The following environment variables affect the execution of .Nm sort : .Bl -tag -width Fl .It Ev TMPDIR Path in which to store temporary files. Note that .Ev TMPDIR may be overridden by the .Fl T option. .El .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width Pa -compact .It Pa /var/tmp/sort.* default temporary directories .It Pa Ar output Ns #PID temporary name for .Ar output if .Ar output already exists .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr comm 1 , .Xr join 1 , .Xr uniq 1 .Sh BUGS Lines longer than 65522 characters are discarded and processing continues. To sort files larger than 60Mb, use .Nm .Fl H ; files larger than 704Mb must be sorted in smaller pieces, then merged. To protect data .Nm .Fl o calls link and unlink, and thus fails in protected directories. .Sh HISTORY A .Nm command appeared in .At v5 . .Sh NOTES The current sort command uses lexicographic radix sorting, which requires that sort keys be kept in memory (as opposed to previous versions which used quick and merge sorts and did not). Thus performance depends highly on efficient choice of sort keys, and the .Fl b option and the .Ar field2 argument of the .Fl k option should be used whenever possible. Similarly, .Nm .Fl k1f is equivalent to .Nm .Fl f and may take twice as long.