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SORT

NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION AUTHOR REPORTING BUGS COPYRIGHT SEE ALSO

NAME

sort - sort lines of text files

SYNOPSIS

sort [''OPTION''?... [''FILE''?...

DESCRIPTION

Write sorted concatenation of all FILE(s) to standard output.

POS1 [-POS2?

start a key at POS1, end it before POS2 (obsolescent) field numbers and character offsets are numbered starting with zero (contrast with the -k option)

-b

ignore leading blanks in sort fields or keys

-c

check if given files already sorted, do not sort

-d

consider only [a-zA-Z0-9? characters in keys

-f

fold lower case to upper case characters in keys

-g

compare according to general numerical value, imply -b

-i

consider only [040-0176? characters in keys

-k POS1[,POS2?

start a key at POS1, end it at POS2 field numbers and character offsets are numbered starting with one (contrast with zero-based +POS form)

-m

merge already sorted files, do not sort

-M

compare (unknown)

-n

compare according to string numerical value, imply -b

-o FILE

write result on FILE instead of standard output

-r

reverse the result of comparisons

-s

stabilize sort by disabling last resort comparison

-t SEP

use SEParator instead of non- to whitespace transition

-T DIRECTORY

use DIRECTORY for temporary files, not $TMPDIR or /tmp

-u

with -c: check for strict ordering otherwise: output only the first of an equal run

-z

end lines with 0 byte, not newline, for find -print0

--help

display this help and exit

--version

output version information and exit

POS is F[.C?[OPTS?, where F is the field number and C the character position in the field, both counted from one with -k, from zero with the obsolescent form. OPTS is made up of one or more of Mbdfinr; this effectively disables global -Mbdfinr settings for that key. If no key is given, use the entire line as the key. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.