Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

So I have a web page that has some drop down boxes with a whole bunch of entries. Unfortunately, they have been added over time and started from a small list and is now extremely messy. I'm looking to write script so I can just copy in the section of the HTML code and have it sorted for me.

The entries are in the format:

<option value="NEWLAB">NewLab Industries, Inc</option>

and I want to order them in ABC order based on the value="<VALUE>" ascii string

It's been quite a while since I did script coding, so I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction?

I assume that the algorithm would go something like this:

- Check for occurrence of substring <option value="
- Run through sorting algorithm (Bubble Sort)?

The only thing is that it's all on one line and most examples I have found have each entry on it's own line. Is this something that is possible or would I have to write a script to insert a new line character after every instance of </option>, run the sorting script, then run another script to delete the new line characters?

Thanks

Place the block of HTML code to be sorted in inputFile and then

Code:

 
sort -t\" -k2,2 inputFile

Can I use sort in emacs if it's all on one line, though?

Not much idea about emacs. But in case, all your inputs are in one line, then following can be run after placing all that one line in inputFile:

Code:

 
sed 's#</option><option#</option>\
<option#g' inputFile | sort -t\" -k2,2

Thanks, anurag.


One question though, how can I Get that to write to a file instead of the console?

I tried doing

Code:

.. <option#g' OutofOrderHTML > SortedHTML ..

which creates the new file, however it's not sorted :\

Code:

sed 's#</option><option#</option>\
<option#g' inputFile | sort -t\" -k2,2 > SortedHTML