Sorting strings with numbers in Bash

Question

I've often wanted to sort strings with numbers in them so that, when sorting e.g. abc_2, abc_1, abc_10 the result is abc_1, abc_2, abc_10. Every sort mechanism I've seen sorts as abc_1, abc_10, abc_2, that is character by character from the left.

Is there any efficient way to sort to get the result I want? The idea of looking at every character, determining if it's a numeral, building a substring out of subsequent numerals and sorting on that as a number is too appalling to contemplate in bash.

Has no bearded *nix guru implemented an alternative version of sort with a --sensible_numerical option?

Is your prefix always the same? – Roman Newaza Jun 12 '13 at 09:29 — Roman Newaza, Jun 12 '13 at 09:29

score 140 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 22 '14 at 10:28

140

Execute this

sort -t _ -k 2 -g data.file

-t separator
-k key/column
-g general numeric sort

edited Oct 22 '14 at 10:28

tripleee

175,061
34
275
318

answered Jun 12 '13 at 09:30

Grzegorz Żur

47,257
14
109
105

2

He need to sort by number - it is second field: `printf "abc_2\nabc_1\nabc_10\n" | sort -t _ -k 2 -g` – Roman Newaza Jun 12 '13 at 09:38
@RomanNewaza, Thanks! You know, zero is also a number. :-) – Grzegorz Żur Jun 12 '13 at 09:41
1

This is not zero based. Look at the man page. – Roman Newaza Jun 12 '13 at 09:43

score 54 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 12 '13 at 10:06

54

I think this is a GNU extension to sort, but you're looking for the --version-sort (or -V) option:

$ printf "prefix%d\n" $(seq 10 -3 1)
prefix10
prefix7
prefix4
prefix1

$ printf "prefix%d\n" $(seq 10 -3 1) | sort
prefix1
prefix10
prefix4
prefix7

$ printf "prefix%d\n" $(seq 10 -3 1) | sort --version-sort
prefix1
prefix4
prefix7
prefix10

https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/sort-invocation.html

answered Jun 12 '13 at 10:06

glenn jackman

238,783
38
220
352

alas, this option has not yet been implemented on the aged version of sort avilable on the geriatric version of RHEL I'm developing on. – hardcode57 Jun 12 '13 at 10:54
4

"sort -V" worked well for me. – nurettin Feb 07 '17 at 06:18
"sort -V" worked also for me as well, which version of RHEL are you using? – Max Cuttins Sep 25 '17 at 08:44
this is exactly what I've been looking for. – Julian Paolo Dayag Oct 27 '21 at 08:42

score 45 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 07 '22 at 12:34

45

You can sort using version-sort
Just pass the following arg -V or --version-sort

# without (ersion-sort)
$ cat a.txt
abc_1
abc_4
abc_2
abc_10
abc_5

# with (version-sort)
$ sort -V a.txt
abc_1
abc_2
abc_4
abc_5
abc_10

edited Nov 07 '22 at 12:34

Ahmed Nabil

17,392
11
61
88

answered Jun 12 '13 at 11:38

Bill

5,263
6
35
50

Sorting strings with numbers in Bash

3 Answers3

Linked

Related