Linux cli command sort

➡ A Linux man page (short for manual page) is a form of software documentation found on Linux and Unix-like operating systems. This man-page explains the command sort and provides detailed information about the command sort, system calls, library functions, and other aspects of the system, including usage, options, and examples of _. You can access this man page by typing man followed by the sort.

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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.

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) < ‘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
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’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, R, Q.

*** 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/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://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

shuf(1), uniq(1)

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sort>
or available locally via: info ‘(coreutils) sort invocation’

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