.\" $OpenBSD: sort.1,v 1.54 2015/04/05 14:20:22 millert Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by .\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)sort.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: April 5 2015 $ .Dt SORT 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm sort .Nd sort, merge, or sequence check text and binary files .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm sort .Op Fl bCcdfgHhiMmnRrsuVz .Op Fl k Ar field1 Ns Op , Ns Ar field2 .Op Fl o Ar output .Op Fl S Ar size .Op Fl T Ar dir .Op Fl t Ar char .Op Ar .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm utility sorts text and binary files by lines. A line is a record separated from the subsequent record by a newline (default) or NUL \'\\0\' character (-z option). A record can contain any printable or unprintable characters. Comparisons are based on one or more sort keys extracted from each line of input, and are performed lexicographically, according to the current locale's collating rules and the specified command-line options that can tune the actual sorting behavior. By default, if keys are not given, .Nm uses entire lines for comparison. .Pp If no .Ar file is specified, or if .Ar file is .Sq - , the standard input is used. .Pp The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Fl C, Fl Fl check=silent|quiet Check that the single input file is sorted. If it is, exit 0; if it's not, exit 1. In either case, produce no output. .It Fl c, Fl Fl check Like .Fl C , but additionally write a message to .Em stderr if the input file is not sorted. .It Fl m , Fl Fl merge Merge only; the input files are assumed to be pre-sorted. If they are not sorted, the output order is undefined. .It Fl o Ar output , Fl Fl output Ns = Ns Ar output Write the output to the .Ar output file instead of the standard output. This file can be the same as one of the input files. .It Fl S Ar size , Fl Fl buffer-size Ns = Ns Ar size Use a memory buffer no larger than .Ar size . The modifiers %, b, K, M, G, T, P, E, Z, and Y can be used. If no memory limit is specified, .Nm may use up to about 90% of available memory. If the input is too big to fit into the memory buffer, temporary files are used. .It Fl s Stable sort; maintains the original record order of records that have an equal key. This is a non-standard feature, but it is widely accepted and used. .It Fl T Ar dir , Fl Fl temporary-directory Ns = Ns Ar dir Store temporary files in the directory .Ar dir . The default path is the value of the environment variable .Ev TMPDIR or .Pa /var/tmp if .Ev TMPDIR is not defined. .It Fl u , Fl Fl unique Unique: suppress all but one in each set of lines having equal keys. This option implies a stable sort (see below). If used with .Fl C or .Fl c , .Nm also checks that there are no lines with duplicate keys. .El .Pp The following options override the default ordering rules. If ordering options appear before the first .Fl k option, they apply globally to all sort keys. When attached to a specific key (see .Fl k ) , the ordering options override all global ordering options for that key. Note that the ordering options intended to apply globally should not appear after .Fl k or results may be unexpected. .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fl d , Fl Fl dictionary-order Consider only blank spaces and alphanumeric characters in comparisons. .It Fl f , Fl Fl ignore-case Consider all lowercase characters that have uppercase equivalents to be the same for purposes of comparison. .It Fl g, Fl Fl general-numeric-sort, Fl Fl sort=general-numeric Sort by general numerical value. As opposed to .Fl n , this option handles general floating points. It has a more permissive format than that allowed by .Fl n but it has a significant performance drawback. .It Fl h, Fl Fl human-numeric-sort, Fl Fl sort=human-numeric Sort by numerical value, but take into account the SI suffix, if present. Sorts first by numeric sign (negative, zero, or positive); then by SI suffix (either empty, or `k' or `K', or one of `MGTPEZY', in that order); and finally by numeric value. The SI suffix must immediately follow the number. For example, '12345K' sorts before '1M', because M is "larger" than K. This sort option is useful for sorting the output of a single invocation of 'df' command with .Fl h or .Fl H options (human-readable). .It Fl i , Fl Fl ignore-nonprinting Ignore all non-printable characters. .It Fl M, Fl Fl month-sort, Fl Fl sort=month Sort by month abbreviations. Unknown strings are considered smaller than valid month names. .It Fl n , Fl Fl numeric-sort, Fl Fl sort=numeric An initial numeric string, consisting of optional blank space, optional minus sign, and zero or more digits (including decimal point) .\" with .\" optional radix character and thousands .\" separator .\" (as defined in the current locale), is sorted by arithmetic value. Leading blank characters are ignored. .It Fl R, Fl Fl random-sort, Fl Fl sort=random Sort lines in random order. This is a random permutation of the inputs with the exception that equal keys sort together. It is implemented by hashing the input keys and sorting the hash values. The hash function is randomized with data from .Xr arc4random_buf 3 , or by file content if one is specified via .Fl Fl random-source . If multiple sort fields are specified, the same random hash function is used for all of them. .It Fl r , Fl Fl reverse Sort in reverse order. .It Fl V, Fl Fl version-sort Sort version numbers. The input lines are treated as file names in form PREFIX VERSION SUFFIX, where SUFFIX matches the regular expression "(\.([A-Za-z~][A-Za-z0-9~]*)?)*". The files are compared by their prefixes and versions (leading zeros are ignored in version numbers, see example below). If an input string does not match the pattern, then it is compared using the byte compare function. All string comparisons are performed in the C locale. .Pp For example: .Bd -literal -offset indent $ ls sort* | sort -V sort-1.022.tgz sort-1.23.tgz sort-1.23.1.tgz sort-1.024.tgz sort-1.024.003. sort-1.024.003.tgz sort-1.024.07.tgz sort-1.024.009.tgz .Ed .El .Pp The treatment of field separators can be altered using these options: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fl b , Fl Fl ignore-leading-blanks Ignore leading blank space when determining the start and end of a restricted sort key (see .Fl k ) . If .Fl b is specified before the first .Fl k option, it applies globally to all key specifications. Otherwise, .Fl b can be attached independently to each .Ar field argument of the key specifications. Note that .Fl b should not appear after .Fl k , and that it has no effect unless key fields are specified. .It Xo .Fl k Ar field1 Ns Op , Ns Ar field2 , .Fl Fl key Ns = Ns Ar field1 Ns Op , Ns Ar field2 .Xc Define a restricted sort key that has the starting position .Ar field1 , and optional ending position .Ar field2 of a key field. The .Fl k option may be specified multiple times, in which case subsequent keys are compared after earlier keys compare equal. The .Fl k option replaces the obsolete options .Cm \(pl Ns Ar pos1 and .Fl Ns Ar pos2 , but the old notation is also supported. .It Fl t Ar char , Fl Fl field-separator Ns = Ns Ar char Use .Ar char as the field separator character. The initial .Ar char is not considered to be part of a field when determining key offsets. Each occurrence of .Ar char is significant (for example, .Dq Ar charchar delimits an empty field). If .Fl t is not specified, the default field separator is a sequence of blank-space characters, and consecutive blank spaces do .Em not delimit an empty field; further, the initial blank space .Em is considered part of a field when determining key offsets. To use NUL as field separator, use .Fl t \'\\0\'. .It Fl z , Fl Fl zero-terminated Use NUL as the record separator. By default, records in the files are expected to be separated by the newline characters. With this option, NUL (\'\\0\') is used as the record separator character. .El .Pp Other options: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fl Fl batch-size Ns = Ns Ar num Specify maximum number of files that can be opened by .Nm at once. This option affects behavior when having many input files or using temporary files. The minimum value is 2. The default value is 16. .It Fl Fl compress-program Ns = Ns Ar program Use .Ar program to compress temporary files. When invoked with no arguments, .Ar program must compress standard input to standard output. When called with the .Fl d option, it must decompress standard input to standard output. If .Ar program fails, .Nm will exit with an error. The .Xr compress 1 and .Xr gzip 1 utilities meet these requirements. .It Fl Fl debug Print some extra information about the sorting process to the standard output. .It Fl Fl files0-from Ns = Ns Ar filename Take the input file list from the file .Ar filename . The file names must be separated by NUL (like the output produced by the command .Dq find ... -print0 ) . .It Fl Fl heapsort Try to use heap sort, if the sort specifications allow. This sort algorithm cannot be used with .Fl u and .Fl s . .It Fl Fl help Print the help text and exit. .It Fl Fl mergesort , Fl H Use mergesort. This is a universal algorithm that can always be used, but it is not always the fastest. .It Fl Fl mmap Try to use file memory mapping system call. It may increase speed in some cases. .It Fl Fl qsort Try to use quick sort, if the sort specifications allow. This sort algorithm cannot be used with .Fl u and .Fl s . .It Fl Fl radixsort Try to use radix sort, if the sort specifications allow. The radix sort can only be used for trivial locales (C and POSIX), and it cannot be used for numeric or month sort. Radix sort is very fast and stable. .It Fl Fl random-source Ns = Ns Ar filename For random sort, the contents of .Ar filename are used as the source of the .Sq seed data for the hash function. Two invocations of random sort with the same seed data will use produce the same result if the input is also identical. By default, the .Xr arc4random_buf 3 function is used instead. .It Fl Fl version Print the version and exit. .El .Pp A field is defined as a maximal sequence of characters other than the field separator and record separator .Pq newline by default . Initial blank spaces are included in the field unless .Fl b has been specified; the first blank space of a sequence of blank spaces acts as the field separator and is included in the field (unless .Fl t is specified). For example, by default all blank spaces at the beginning of a line are considered to be part of the first field. .Pp Fields are specified by the .Fl k Ar field1 Ns Op , Ns Ar field2 option. If .Ar field2 is missing, the end of the key defaults to the end of the line. .Pp The arguments .Ar field1 and .Ar field2 have the form .Em m.n .Em (m,n > 0) and can be followed by one or more of the modifiers .Cm b , d , f , i , .Cm n , g , M and .Cm r , which correspond to the options discussed above. When .Cm b is specified it applies only to .Ar field1 or .Ar field2 where it is specified while the rest of the modifiers apply to the whole key field regardless if they are specified only with .Ar field1 or .Ar field2 or both. A .Ar field1 position specified by .Em m.n is interpreted as the .Em n Ns th character from the beginning of the .Em m Ns th field. A missing .Em \&.n in .Ar field1 means .Ql \&.1 , indicating the first character of the .Em m Ns th field; if the .Fl b option is in effect, .Em n is counted from the first non-blank character in the .Em m Ns th field; .Em m Ns \&.1b refers to the first non-blank character in the .Em m Ns th field. .No 1\&. Ns Em n refers to the .Em n Ns th character from the beginning of the line; if .Em n is greater than the length of the line, the field is taken to be empty. .Pp .Em n Ns th positions are always counted from the field beginning, even if the field is shorter than the number of specified positions. Thus, the key can really start from a position in a subsequent field. .Pp A .Ar field2 position specified by .Em m.n is interpreted as the .Em n Ns th character (including separators) from the beginning of the .Em m Ns th field. A missing .Em \&.n indicates the last character of the .Em m Ns th field; .Em m = \&0 designates the end of a line. Thus the option .Fl k Ar v.x,w.y is synonymous with the obsolete option .Cm \(pl Ns Ar v-\&1.x-\&1 .Fl Ns Ar w-\&1.y ; when .Em y is omitted, .Fl k Ar v.x,w is synonymous with .Cm \(pl Ns Ar v-\&1.x-\&1 .Fl Ns Ar w\&.0 . The obsolete .Cm \(pl Ns Ar pos1 .Fl Ns Ar pos2 option is still supported, except for .Fl Ns Ar w\&.0b , which has no .Fl k equivalent. .Sh ENVIRONMENT .Bl -tag -width Fl .It Ev GNUSORT_NUMERIC_COMPATIBILITY If defined .Fl t will not override the locale numeric symbols, that is, thousand separators and decimal separators. By default, if we specify .Fl t with the same symbol as the thousand separator or decimal point, the symbol will be treated as the field separator. Older behavior was less definite: the symbol was treated as both field separator and numeric separator, simultaneously. This environment variable enables the old behavior. .It Ev LANG Used as a last resort to determine different kinds of locale-specific behavior if neither the respective environment variable nor .Ev LC_ALL are set. .It Ev LC_ALL Locale settings that override all of the other locale settings. This environment variable can be used to set all these settings to the same value at once. .It Ev LC_COLLATE Locale settings to be used to determine the collation for sorting records. .It Ev LC_CTYPE Locale settings to be used to case conversion and classification of characters, that is, which characters are considered whitespaces, etc. .It Ev LC_MESSAGES Locale settings that determine the language of output messages that .Nm prints out. .It Ev LC_NUMERIC Locale settings that determine the number format used in numeric sort. .It Ev LC_TIME Locale settings that determine the month format used in month sort. .It Ev TMPDIR Path to the directory in which temporary files will be stored. Note that .Ev TMPDIR may be overridden by the .Fl T option. .El .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width Pa -compact .It Pa /var/tmp/.bsdsort.PID.* Temporary files. .El .Sh EXIT STATUS The .Nm utility exits with one of the following values: .Pp .Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact .It 0 Successfully sorted the input files or if used with .Fl C or .Fl c , the input file already met the sorting criteria. .It 1 On disorder (or non-uniqueness) with the .Fl C or .Fl c options. .It 2 An error occurred. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr comm 1 , .Xr join 1 , .Xr uniq 1 .Sh STANDARDS The .Nm utility is compliant with the .St -p1003.1-2008 specification. .Pp The flags .Op Fl gHhiMRSsTVz are extensions to that specification. .Pp All long options are extensions to the specification. Some are provided for compatibility with GNU .Nm , others are specific to this implementation. .Pp Some implementations of .Nm honor the .Fl b option even when no key fields are specified. This implementation follows historic practice and .St -p1003.1-2008 in only honoring .Fl b when it precedes a key field. .Pp The historic practice of allowing the .Fl o option to appear after the .Ar file is supported for compatibility with older versions of .Nm . .Pp The historic key notations .Cm \(pl Ns Ar pos1 and .Fl Ns Ar pos2 are supported for compatibility with older versions of .Nm but their use is highly discouraged. .Sh HISTORY A .Nm command appeared in .At v3 . .Sh AUTHORS .An Gabor Kovesdan Aq Mt gabor@FreeBSD.org .An Oleg Moskalenko Aq Mt mom040267@gmail.com .Sh CAVEATS This implementation of .Nm has no limits on input line length (other than imposed by available memory) or any restrictions on bytes allowed within lines. .Pp The performance depends highly on locale settings, efficient choice of sort keys and key complexity. The fastest sort is with the C locale, on whole lines, with option .Fl s . In general, the C locale is the fastest, followed by single-byte locales with multi-byte locales being the slowest. The correct collation order respected in all cases. For the key specification, the simpler to process the lines the faster the search will be. .Pp When sorting by arithmetic value, using .Fl n results in much better performance than .Fl g so its use is encouraged whenever possible.