path: root/usr.bin/sort/sort.1

.\"	$NetBSD: sort.1,v 1.38 2017/07/03 21:34:21 wiz Exp $
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.\"     @(#)sort.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
.\"
.Dd June 1, 2016
.Dt SORT 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm sort
.Nd sort or merge text files
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl bdfHilmnrSsu
.Oo
.Fl k
.Ar kstart Ns Op Li \&, Ns Ar kend
.Oc
.Op Fl o Ar output
.Op Fl R Ar char
.Op Fl T Ar dir
.Op Fl t Ar char
.Op Ar
.Nm
.Fl C Ns | Ns Fl c
.Op Fl bdfilnru
.Oo
.Fl k
.Ar kstart Ns Op Li \&, Ns Ar kend
.Op Fl t Ar char
.Oc
.Op Fl R Ar char
.Op Ar file
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility sorts text files by lines.
Comparisons are based on one or more sort keys extracted
from each line of input, and are performed lexicographically.
By default, if keys are not given,
.Nm
regards each input line as a single field.
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag -width Fl
.It Fl C
Identical to
.Fl c
without the error messages in the case of unsorted input.
.It Fl c
Check that the single input file is sorted.
If the file is not sorted,
.Nm
produces the appropriate error messages and exits with code 1; otherwise,
.Nm
returns 0.
.Nm
.Fl c
produces no output.
See also
.Fl u .
.It Fl H
Ignored for compatibility with earlier versions of
.Nm .
.It Fl m
Merge only; the input files are assumed to be pre-sorted.
.It Fl o Ar output
The argument given is the name of an
.Ar output
file to be used instead of the standard output.
This file can be the same as one of the input files.
.It Fl S
Don't use stable sort.
Default is to use stable sort.
.It Fl s
Use stable sort, keeps records with equal keys in their original order.
This is the default.
Provided for compatibility with other
.Nm
implementations only.
.It Fl T Ar dir
Use
.Ar dir
as the directory for temporary files.
The default is the value specified in the environment variable
.Ev TMPDIR or
.Pa /tmp
if
.Ev TMPDIR
is not defined.
.It Fl u
Unique: suppress all but one in each set of lines having equal keys.
If used with the
.Fl c
option, check that there are no lines with duplicate keys.
.El
.Pp
The following options,
which should be given before any
.Fl k
options, override the default ordering rules.
When ordering options appear independent of,
and before, key field specifications,
the requested field ordering rules are
applied 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.
.Bl -tag -width Fl
.It Fl d
Only blank space and alphanumeric characters
.\" according
.\" to the current setting of LC_CTYPE
are used
in making comparisons.
.It Fl f
Considers all lowercase characters that have uppercase
equivalents to be the same for purposes of comparison.
.It Fl i
Ignore all non-printable characters.
.It Fl l
Sort by the string length of the field, not by the field itself.
.It Fl n
An initial numeric string, consisting of optional blank space, optional
plus or 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.
(The
.Fl n
option no longer implies the
.Fl b
option.)
.It Fl r
Reverse the sense of comparisons.
.El
.Pp
The treatment of field separators can be altered using these options:
.Bl -tag -width Fl
.It Fl b
Ignores leading blank space when determining the start
and end of a restricted sort key.
A
.Fl b
option specified before the first
.Fl k
option applies globally to all
.Fl k
options.
Otherwise, the
.Fl b
option can be attached independently to each
.Ar field
argument of the
.Fl k
option (see below).
Note that the
.Fl b
option has no effect unless key fields are specified.
.It Fl k Ar kstart Ns Op Li \&, Ns Ar kend
Designates the starting position,
.Ar kstart ,
and optional ending position,
.Ar kend ,
of a key field.
The
.Fl k
option replaces the obsolescent options
.Cm \(pl Ns Ar pos1
and
.Fl Ns Ar pos2 .
.It Fl R Ar char
.Ar char
is used as the record separator character.
This should be used with discretion;
.Fl R Aq Ar alphanumeric
usually produces undesirable results.
If char is not a single character, then it
specifies the value of the desired record
separator as an integer specified in any
of the normal NNN, 0ooo, or 0xXXX ways,
or as an octal value preceded by \e.
Caution: do not attempt to specify Ctl-A
as
.Dq -R 1
which will not do what was intended at all!
The default record separator is newline.
.It Fl t Ar char
.Ar char
is used as the field separator character.
The initial
.Ar char
is not considered to be part of a field when determining
key offsets (see below).
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.
.El
.Pp
The following operands are available:
.Bl -tag -width Ar
.It Ar file
The pathname of a file to be sorted, merged, or checked.
If no
.Ar file
operands are specified, or if
a
.Ar file
operand is
.Fl ,
the standard input is used.
.El
.Pp
A field is defined as a minimal sequence of characters followed by a
field separator or a newline character.
By default, the first
blank space of a sequence of blank spaces acts as the field separator.
All blank spaces in a sequence of blank spaces are considered
as part of the next field; for example, 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 kstart Ns Op \&, Ns Ar kend
argument.
A missing
.Ar kend
argument defaults to the end of a line.
.Pp
The arguments
.Ar kstart
and
.Ar kend
have the form
.Ar m Ns Li \&. Ns Ar n
and can be followed by one or more of the letters
.Cm b , d , f , i ,
.Cm l , n ,
and
.Cm r ,
which correspond to the options discussed above.
A
.Ar kstart
position specified by
.Ar m Ns Li \&. Ns Ar n
.Pq Ar m , n No > 0
is interpreted as the
.Ar n Ns th
character in the
.Ar m Ns th
field.
A missing
.Li \&. Ns Ar n
in
.Ar kstart
means
.Ql \&.1 ,
indicating the first character of the
.Ar m Ns th
field; if the
.Fl b
option is in effect,
.Ar n
is counted from the first non-blank character in the
.Ar m Ns th
field;
.Ar m Ns Li \&.1b
refers to the first non-blank character in the
.Ar m Ns th
field.
.Pp
A
.Ar kend
position specified by
.Ar m Ns Li \&. Ns Ar n
is interpreted as
the
.Ar n Ns th
character (including separators) of the
.Ar m Ns th
field.
A missing
.Li \&. Ns Ar n
indicates the last character of the
.Ar m Ns th
field;
.Ar m
= \&0
designates the end of a line.
Thus the option
.Fl k
.Sm off
.Xo
.Ar v Li \&. Ar x Li \&,
.Ar w Li \&. Ar y
.Xc
.Sm on
is synonymous with the obsolescent option
.Sm off
.Cm \(pl Ar v-\&1 Li \&. Ar x-\&1
.Fl Ar w-\&1 Li \&. Ar y ;
.Sm on
when
.Ar y
is omitted,
.Fl k
.Sm off
.Ar v Li \&. Ar x Li \&, Ar w
.Sm on
is synonymous with
.Sm off
.Cm \(pl Ar v-\&1 Li \&. Ar x-\&1
.Fl Ar w+1 Li \&.0 .
.Sm on
The obsolescent
.Cm \(pl Ns Ar pos1
.Fl Ns Ar pos2
option is still supported, except for
.Fl Ns Ar w Ns Li \&.0b ,
which has no
.Fl k
equivalent.
.Pp
.Nm
compares records by comparing the key fields selected by
.Fl k
arguments,
from first given to last,
until discovering a difference.
If there are no
.Fl k
arguments, the whole record is treated as a single key.
After exhausting the
.Fl k
arguments, if no difference has been found,
then the result depends upon the
.Fl u
and
.Fl S
option settings.
With
.Fl u
the records are considered identical, and one is supressed.
Otherwise with
.Fl s
set (default) the records are left in their original order,
or with
.Fl S
(posix mode) the whole record is considered as a tie breaker.
.\"
.\" If you fail to understand why it doesn't matter which order
.\" the records are output when they are wholly identical, there
.\" is nothing that this man page can say that wll help!
.\"
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
If the following environment variable exists, it is used by
.Nm .
.Bl -tag -width Ev
.It Ev TMPDIR
.Nm
uses the contents of the
.Ev TMPDIR
environment variable as the path in which to store
temporary files.
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width outputNUMBER+some -compact
.It Pa /tmp/sort.*
Default temporary files.
.It Ar output Ns NUMBER
Temporary file which is used for output if
.Ar output
already exists.
Once sorting is finished, this file replaces
.Ar output
(via
.Xr link 2
and
.Xr unlink 2 ) .
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
Sort exits with one of the following values:
.Bl -tag -width flag -compact
.It 0
Normal behavior.
.It 1
On disorder (or non-uniqueness) with the
.Fl c
(or
.Fl C )
option.
.It 2
An error occurred.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr comm 1 ,
.Xr join 1 ,
.Xr uniq 1 ,
.Xr qsort 3 ,
.Xr radixsort 3
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command appeared in
.At v5 .
This
.Nm
implementation appeared in
.Bx 4.4
and is used since
.Nx 1.6 .
.Sh BUGS
Posix requires the locale's thousands separator be ignored in numbers.
It may be faster to sort very large files in pieces and then explicitly
merge them.
.Sh NOTES
This
.Nm
has no limits on input line length (other than imposed by available
memory) or any restrictions on bytes allowed within lines.
.Pp
To protect data
.Nm
.Fl o
calls
.Xr link 2
and
.Xr unlink 2 ,
and thus fails on protected directories.
.Pp
Input files should be text files.
If file doesn't end with record separator (which is typically newline), the
.Nm
utility silently supplies one.
.Pp
The current
.Nm
uses lexicographic radix sorting, which requires
that sort keys be kept in memory (as opposed to previous versions which used quick
and merge sorts and did not.)
Thus performance depends highly on efficient choice of sort keys, and the
.Fl b
option and the
.Ar kend
argument of the
.Fl k
option should be used whenever possible.
Similarly,
.Nm
.Fl k1f
is equivalent to
.Nm
.Fl f
and may take twice as long.