sort script Post: 302713531

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting sort script Post 302713531 by LMHmedchem on Wednesday 10th of October 2012 11:56:39 PM

10-11-2012

Registered User

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim mcnamara

IMO: your idea lacks merit.

You should simply insert the data into a db with a loader, then produce output. If you have Excel you have MS office and probably a db like Access. UNIX has free db's: mysql, Berekely db, etc.

So, Why does your idea look like reinventing the wheel?

The reason is that Don Cragun is right. You have to have complete metadata for each and every column to be able to sort based on arbitrary column selections. And there is too much metadata to cobble together anything useful in shell. Metadata can change. db's are meant for that contingency.

The way it is now, you have to know what you are sorting by looking at it - in effect gathering metadata. You have to use human intelligence to make decisions. Then use unix sort/Excel sort. Databases are meant to do this. You just tell db's to sort on column names, optionally: ascending or descending for each column. You can write database scripts (SQL language for example) to do stats or a lot of what you already can do in Excel.

So, stay in Excel or move to a db. I vote for a db.

Yes, a database would be nice. I am in the process of working on a database system for some of this data, but there are non-trivial issues with other parts of it not related to this, so I am finishing what I am working on using some scripting tools that I already have. The sorting is the only part of the process that is not already scripted, so I am having to open each file in excel, set up a sort, save the file, and then do some shell to get the txt file back to linux land. All of these sorts are on ints and in ascending order. I have a few hundred to do, so after the first several, I started thinking that there had to be a better way.

I am in one of those situations where the choice is between slogging through an inefficient process, or taking allot of time to set up the correct process. I don't know SQL at all, so I am reluctant to spend days getting all of that set up when the sort function is the only thing that I can't automate. Of course, after taking the time to learn and set it up, I would have learned more tools, and that is not a small thing in any way. Eventually I will do all of the steps I am doing now with SQL queries out of SQLite, using ruby scripts to populate the database (and eventually a browser interface). For now, someone is waiting on the results for this and I need to get it done as quickly as possible. Even if I have to hard code modify a separate script for each sorting criteria, that will still be much faster than all the excel, especially since I have to modify the resulting excel file. I will have to do this process again with other data, so once the scripts are set up, I should be able to automate the entire process.

I was thinking that if I was going to set up a sort script, I might as well try to make is a general a tool as possible so that it could be useful for other things. It does appear that there is allot of possible variation in how the script would need to operate in different cases, so perhaps my thinking was not realistic. Never the less, it would be a significant help with my current project and would not need to be generalized for that purpose.

LMHmedchem

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LEARN ABOUT LINUX

wrap-and-sort

WRAP-AND-SORT(1)                                              General Commands Manual                                             WRAP-AND-SORT(1)

NAME

       wrap-and-sort - wrap long lines and sort items in Debian packaging files

SYNOPSIS

       wrap-and-sort [options]

DESCRIPTION

       wrap-and-sort  wraps the package lists in Debian control files. By default the lists will only split into multiple lines if the entries are
       longer than 80 characters. wrap-and-sort sorts the package lists in Debian control files and all .install files. Beside that  wrap-and-sort
       removes trailing spaces in these files.

       This  script should be run in the root of a Debian package tree. It searches for control, control.in, copyright, copyright.in, install, and
       *.install in the debian directory.

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              Show this help message and exit.

       -a, --wrap-always
              Wrap all package lists in the Debian control file even if the entries are shorter than 80 characters and could fit in one line line.

       -s, --short-indent
              Only indent wrapped lines by one space (default is in-line with the field name).

       -b, --sort-binary-packages
              Sort binary package paragraphs by name.

       -k, --keep-first
              When sorting binary package paragraphs, leave the first one at the top.  Unqualified debhelper(7) configuration files are applied to
              the first package.

       -n, --no-cleanup
              Do not remove trailing whitespaces.

       -d path, --debian-directory=path
              Location of the debian directory (default: ./debian).

       -f file, --file=file
              Wrap  and sort only the specified file.  You can specify this parameter multiple times.  All supported files will be processed if no
              files are specified.

       -v, --verbose
              Print all files that are touched.

AUTHORS

       wrap-and-sort and this manpage have been written by Benjamin Drung <bdrung@debian.org>.

       Both are released under the ISC license.

DEBIAN                                                           Debian Utilities                                                 WRAP-AND-SORT(1)

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