Sort by specific order?


 
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# 1  
Old 02-01-2013
Sort by specific order?

Hello all

I was wondering if someone has an idea how to sort by a specific order, let's say by a specific alphabet containing only 4 letters like (d,s,a,p) instead of (a,b,c....z) ??

Cheers!
# 2  
Old 02-01-2013
Could you give input/output examples?
# 3  
Old 02-01-2013
Sure, here's an example.
A file containing the following ascii text:
Code:
axxx whatever xxxx ...
pxxx whatever xxxx ...
daxxx whatever xxxx ...
sxxx whatever xxxx ...
dbxxx whatever xxxx ...

should be sorted as:

Code:
daxxx whatever xxxx ...
dbxxx whatever xxxx ...
sxxx whatever xxxx ...
axxx whatever xxxx ...
pxxx whatever xxxx ...

Only first char is important to define order (order should be d,s,a,p) - which means, fist char will always be one of this letters (d,s,a,p)
After first char normal alphanumeric sort is fine (1,2...9,a,b,c,d...z)
# 4  
Old 02-01-2013
You can give this a try (not tested):
Code:
awk '/^d/{print 1 $0} /^s/{print 2 $0}/^a/{print 3 $0}/^p/{print 4 $0}' file | sort | awk '{print substr($0,2)}'

# 5  
Old 02-01-2013
you can try using something like below:
source file:
88
Code:
$ cat ishan1
axxx whatever xxxx ...
pxxx whatever xxxx ...
daxxx whatever xxxx ...
sxxx whatever xxxx ...
dbxxx whatever xxxx ...
axxx whatever xxxx ...
pxxx whatever xxxx ...
daxxx whatever xxxx ...
sxxx whatever xxxx ...
dbxxx whatever xxxx ...
axxx whatever xxxx ...
pxxx whatever xxxx ...
daxxx whatever xxxx ...
sxxx whatever xxxx ...
dbxxx whatever xxxx ...

you can now have a script like:
"ishan2.ksh" 5 lines, 102 characters
Code:
#!/usr/bin/ksh
cat ishan1 | grep ^d
cat ishan1 | grep ^s
cat ishan1 | grep ^a
cat ishan1 | grep ^p

the output will be like:
Code:
daxxx whatever xxxx ...
dbxxx whatever xxxx ...
daxxx whatever xxxx ...
dbxxx whatever xxxx ...
daxxx whatever xxxx ...
dbxxx whatever xxxx ...
sxxx whatever xxxx ...
sxxx whatever xxxx ...
sxxx whatever xxxx ...
axxx whatever xxxx ...
axxx whatever xxxx ...
axxx whatever xxxx ...
pxxx whatever xxxx ...
pxxx whatever xxxx ...
pxxx whatever xxxx ...


Last edited by Scrutinizer; 02-01-2013 at 10:33 AM.. Reason: code tags
# 6  
Old 02-01-2013
awk thingie:
Code:
awk '{f=substr($1,1,1); A[f]=A[f] $0 RS} END{ s=A["d"] A["s"] A["a"] A["p"]; print s}' ORS= file

--
Some awks can do this:
Code:
awk '{A[$1]=A[$1] $0 RS} END{ n=split(order,O); for(i=1; i<=n; i++) print A[O[i]]}' order=dsap FS= ORS= file

---
elaborating on Ishan's grep example:
Code:
for i in d s a p; do
  grep "^$i" infile
done > outfile

--
sorting of the characters after the first character:
Code:
sed 's/./& /' file | sort -k2 |
awk '{f=$1; sub(FS,x); A[f]=A[f] $0 RS} END{ s=A["d"] A["s"] A["a"] A["p"]; print s}' ORS=


Last edited by Scrutinizer; 02-01-2013 at 09:53 AM..
This User Gave Thanks to Scrutinizer For This Post:
# 7  
Old 02-01-2013
Code:
perl -e'BEGIN {
  %h = map { $_, ++$c } split //, shift
  }
  print sort { $h{substr $a, 0, 1} <=> $h{substr $b, 0, 1} } <>  
  ' "dsap" infile

This User Gave Thanks to radoulov For This Post:
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