sort(1) [osx man page]
SORT(1) User Commands SORT(1) NAME
sort - sort lines of text files SYNOPSIS
sort [OPTION]... [FILE]... 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' -n, --numeric-sort compare according to string numerical value -r, --reverse reverse the result of comparisons Other options: -c, --check check whether input is sorted; do not sort -k, --key=POS1[,POS2] start a key at POS1, end it at POS2 (origin 1) -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 -u, --unique with -c, check for strict ordering; without -c, output only the first of an equal run -z, --zero-terminated end lines with 0 byte, not newline --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit POS is F[.C][OPTS], where F is the field number and C the character position in the field. OPTS is one or more single-letter ordering options, 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
Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>. COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the GNU General Public License <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. SEE ALSO
The full documentation for sort is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and sort programs are properly installed at your site, the command info sort should give you access to the complete manual. sort 5.93 November 2005 SORT(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
SORT(1) General Commands Manual SORT(1) NAME
sort - sort or merge files SYNOPSIS
sort [ -_________x ] [ +pos1 [ -pos2 ] ] ... [ -o name ] [ -T directory ] [ name ] ... DESCRIPTION
Sort sorts lines of all the named files together and writes the result on the standard output. The name `-' means the standard input. If no input files are named, the standard input is sorted. The default sort key is an entire line. Default ordering is lexicographic by bytes in machine collating sequence. The ordering is affected globally by the following options, one or more of which may appear. b Ignore leading blanks (spaces and tabs) in field comparisons. d `Dictionary' order: only letters, digits and blanks are significant in comparisons. f Fold upper case letters onto lower case. i Ignore characters outside the ASCII range 040-0176 in nonnumeric comparisons. n An initial numeric string, consisting of optional blanks, optional minus sign, and zero or more digits with optional decimal point, is sorted by arithmetic value. Option n implies option b. r Reverse the sense of comparisons. tx `Tab character' separating fields is x. The notation +pos1 -pos2 restricts a sort key to a field beginning at pos1 and ending just before pos2. Pos1 and pos2 each have the form m.n, optionally followed by one or more of the flags bdfinr, where m tells a number of fields to skip from the beginning of the line and n tells a number of characters to skip further. If any flags are present they override all the global ordering options for this key. If the b option is in effect n is counted from the first nonblank in the field; b is attached independently to pos2. A missing .n means .0; a missing -pos2 means the end of the line. Under the -tx option, fields are strings separated by x; otherwise fields are nonempty nonblank strings separated by blanks. When there are multiple sort keys, later keys are compared only after all earlier keys compare equal. Lines that otherwise compare equal are ordered with all bytes significant. These option arguments are also understood: c Check that the input file is sorted according to the ordering rules; give no output unless the file is out of sort. m Merge only, the input files are already sorted. o The next argument is the name of an output file to use instead of the standard output. This file may be the same as one of the inputs. T The next argument is the name of a directory in which temporary files should be made. u Suppress all but one in each set of equal lines. Ignored bytes and bytes outside keys do not participate in this comparison. Examples. Print in alphabetical order all the unique spellings in a list of words. Capitalized words differ from uncapitalized. sort -u +0f +0 list Print the password file (passwd(5)) sorted by user id number (the 3rd colon-separated field). sort -t: +2n /etc/passwd Print the first instance of each month in an already sorted file of (month day) entries. The options -um with just one input file make the choice of a unique representative from a set of equal lines predictable. sort -um +0 -1 dates FILES
/usr/tmp/stm*, /tmp/*: first and second tries for temporary files SEE ALSO
uniq(1), comm(1), rev(1), join(1) DIAGNOSTICS
Comments and exits with nonzero status for various trouble conditions and for disorder discovered under option -c. BUGS
Very long lines are silently truncated. SORT(1)