sort5(1)sort5(1)Namesort5 - internationalized System 5 sort and/or merge files
Syntaxsort5 [-cmu] [-ooutput] [-ykmem] [-zrecsz] [-X] [-dfiMnr] [-btx] [+pos1
[-pos2]] [files]
Description
The command sorts lines of the named files together and writes the
result on the standard output. The standard input is read if a hyphen
(-) is used as a file name or if no input files are named.
Comparisons are based on one or more sort keys extracted from each line
of input. By default, there is one sort key, the entire input line,
and ordering is determined by the collating sequence specified by the
LC_COLLATE locale. The LC_COLLATE locale is controlled by the settings
of either the LANG or LC_COLLATE environment variables. See for more
information.
Options
The following options alter the default behavior:
-c Checks that the input file is sorted according to the ordering
rules; gives no output unless the file is out of order.
-m Merges only; the input files are already sorted.
-u Suppresses all but one in each set of lines having equal keys.
-ooutput
Specifies the name of an output file to use instead of the stan‐
dard output. The file may be the same as one of the inputs.
Blanks between -o and output are optional.
-ykmem
Specifies the number of kilobytes of memory to use when sorting a
file. If this option is omitted, sort5 begins using a system
default memory size, and continues to use more space as needed.
If kmem is specified, sort5 starts using that number of kilobytes
of memory. If the administrative minimum or maximum is violated,
the value of the corresponding minimum or maximum is used. Thus,
-y0 is guaranteed to start with minimum memory. By convention, -y
(with no argument) starts with maximum memory.
-zrecsz
Records the size of the longest line read in the sort phase so
buffers can be allocated during the merge phase. If the sort
phase is omitted using either the -c or -m options, a system
default size is used. Lines longer than the buffer size cause to
terminate abnormally. Supplying the actual number of bytes (or
some larger value) in the longest line to be merged prevents
abnormal termination.
-X Sorts using tags. Upon input each key is converted to a tag value
which is sorted efficiently. This option makes international sort‐
ing faster but it consumes more memory since both key and tag must
be stored.
The following options override the default ordering rules:
-d Specifies Dictionary order. Only letters, digits and blanks (spa‐
ces and tabs) are significant in comparisons.
-f Folds lower case letters into upper case.
-i Ignores characters outside the ASCII range 040-0176 in non-numeric
comparisons.
-n Sorts an initial numeric string, consisting of optional blanks,
optional minus sign, and zero or more digits with optional decimal
point, by arithmetic value. The -n option implies the -b option,
which tells the command to ignore leading blanks when determining
the starting and ending positions of a restricted sort key.
-r Reverses the sense of comparisons.
When ordering options appear before restricted sort key specifications,
the requested ordering rules are applied globally to all sort keys.
When attached to a specific sort key (described below), the specified
ordering options override all global ordering options for that key.
The notation +pos1 -pos2 restricts a sort key to one beginning at pos1
and ending at pos2. The characters at positions pos1 and pos2 are
included in the sort key (provided that pos2 does not precede pos1). A
missing -pos2 means the end of the line.
Specifying pos1 and pos2 involves the notion of a field, that is a min‐
imal sequence of characters followed by a field separator or a new-
line. By default, the first blank of a sequence of blanks acts as the
field separator. The blank can be either a space or a tab. All blanks
in a sequence of blanks are interpreted as a part of the next field;
for example, all blanks at the beginning of a line are considered to be
part of the first field. The treatment of field separators is altered
using the following options:
-tx Uses x as the field separator character. Although it may be
included in a sort key, x is not considered part of a field. Each
occurrence of x is significant (for example, xx delimits an empty
field).
-b Ignores leading blanks when determining the starting and ending
positions of a restricted sort key. If the -b option is specified
before the first +pos1 argument, it is applied to all +pos1 argu‐
ments. Otherwise, the b flag may be attached independently to
each +pos1 or -pos2 argument.
Pos1 and pos2 each have the form m.n optionally followed by one or more
of the flags bdfinr. A starting position specified by +m.n is inter‐
preted to mean the n+1st character in the m+1st field. A missing .n
means .0, indicating the first character of the m+1st field. If the b
flag is in effect n is counted from the first non-blank in the m+1st
field; +m.0b refers to the first non-blank character in the m+1st
field.
A last position specified by -m.n is interpreted to mean the nth char‐
acter (including separators) after the last character of the m th
field. A missing .n means .0, indicating the last character of the mth
field. If the b flag is in effect n is counted from the last leading
blank in the m+1st field; -m.1b refers to the first non-blank in the
m+1st field.
When there are multiple sort keys, later keys are compared only after
all earlier keys are found to be equal. Lines that otherwise compare
equal are ordered with all bytes significant.
Examples
Sort the contents of infile with the second field as the sort key:
sort5 +1 -2 infile
Sort, in reverse order, the contents of infile1 and infile2, placing
the output in outfile and using the first character of the second field
as the sort key:
sort5-r -o outfile +1.0 -1.2 infile1 infile2
Sort, in reverse order, the contents of infile1 and infile2 using the
first non-blank character of the second field as the sort key:
sort5-r +1.0b -1.1b infile1 infile2
Print the password file sorted by the numeric user ID (the third colon-
separated field):
sort5 -t: +2n -3 /etc/passwd
Print the lines of the already sorted file infile, suppressing all but
the first occurrence of lines having the same third field (the options
-um with just one input file make the choice of a unique representative
from a set of equal lines predictable):
sort5-um +2 -3 infile
Diagnostics
Comments and exits with non-zero status for various trouble conditions
(for example, when input lines are too long), and for disorder discov‐
ered under the -c option.
When the last line of an input file is missing a new-line character,
sort5 appends one, prints a warning message, and continues.
Files
/usr/tmp/stm???
See Alsocomm(1), join(1), uniq(1), setlocale(3int), strcoll(3int)sort5(1)
