2.9BSD/usr/man/cat1/sort.1

SORT(1)             UNIX Programmer's Manual              SORT(1)

NAME
     sort - sort or merge files

SYNTAX
     sort [ -mubdfinrt_________x ] [ +_p_o_s_1  [ -_p_o_s_2 ] ] [ -o name
     ] [ -T directory ] [ files ]

DESCRIPTION
     _S_o_r_t sorts lines of all the named files together and writes
     the result on the standard output.  If no input files are
     named, the standard input is sorted.  The name "-" also
     means read input from standard input.

     The default sort key is an entire line.  Default ordering is
     lexicographic by bytes in the 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 com-
          parisons.

     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.

     t_x   `Tab character' separating fields is _x.

     The notation +_p_o_s_1 -_p_o_s_2 restricts a sort key to a field
     beginning at _p_o_s_1 and ending just before _p_o_s_2.  _p_o_s_1 and
     _p_o_s_2 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 _p_o_s_2.
     A missing ._n means .0; a missing -_p_o_s_2 means the end of the
     line.  Under the -t_x option, fields are strings separated by
     _x; otherwise fields are nonempty nonblank strings separated
     by blanks.

Printed 5/16/83                                                 1

SORT(1)             UNIX Programmer's Manual              SORT(1)

     When there are multiple sort keys, later keys are compared
     only after all earlier keys compare equal.  Lines that oth-
     erwise compare equal are ordered on the basis of all bytes
     in the line.

     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.

FILES
     /usr/tmp/stm*       first try for temporary files
     /tmp/*              second trie for temporary files

SEE ALSO
     comm(1), join(1), rev(1), uniq(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.

EXAMPLES
     Sort a file called list in numeric order:

             sort  -n  list

     Sort by field 3 in file list where fields are separated by
     ";":

             sort  -t;  +2  -3  list

     Sort by columns 10 to 24 in numeric order:

             sort  -n  +0.9  -0.24  list

Printed 5/16/83                                                 2

SORT(1)             UNIX Programmer's Manual              SORT(1)

     Take the case where columns 10 to 24 are dates where each
     two columns is respectively year, month, day, hour, minute,
     and columns 20 to 24 are seconds such as 20.34.  Further-
     more, assume the seconds can be blank.  Then sorting must
     not be numeric since these are left justified numbers and
     lexicographic sorting is required.

             sort  +0.9  -0.24  list

     Sort by columns 3 and 4 of field 10 where the fields are
     separated by ":":

             sort  -t:  +9.2  -9.4  list

     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 (_p_a_s_s_w_d(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

Printed 5/16/83                                                 3