Shell Programming and Scripting

perl -lne 'push @strs,$_;END{print for map {scalar reverse} sort map {scalar reverse} @strs}' file

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# @(#) s1	Demonstrate reversed character key sequencing, msort.
# See: http://freecode.com/projects/msort

# Utility functions: print-as-echo, print-line-with-visual-space, debug.
# export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"
pe() { for _i;do printf "%s" "$_i";done; printf "\n"; }
pl() { pe;pe "-----" ;pe "$*"; }
db() { ( printf " db, ";for _i;do printf "%s" "$_i";done;printf "\n" ) >&2 ; }
db() { : ; }
C=$HOME/bin/context && [ -f $C ] && $C msort

FILE=${1-data1}

pl " Input data file $FILE:"
cat $FILE

pl " Results, normal key sequencing:"
msort -q --line -n 1,1 $FILE

pl " Results, reversed key sequencing:"
msort -q --line -n 1,1 -R $FILE

exit 0

% ./s1

Environment: LC_ALL = C, LANG = C
(Versions displayed with local utility "version")
OS, ker|rel, machine: Linux, 2.6.26-2-amd64, x86_64
Distribution        : Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.8 (lenny) 
bash GNU bash 3.2.39
msort 8.44

-----
 Input data file data1:
John
Mary
Henry
does
doing
writes

-----
 Results, normal key sequencing:
Henry
John
Mary
does
doing
writes

-----
 Results, reversed key sequencing:
doing
John
does
writes
Mary
Henry