sorttable - sort an ASCII tab table on specified columns.

SYNOPSYS

	sorttable [options] [keycolumn[:flags]] [keycolumn[:flags]] ...

OPTIONS

Program Options

-i file

input file.

-o file

output file.

-D

print out the intended arvg just before calling sort.

-c

Check whether the given files are already sorted: if they are not all sorted, print an error message and exit with a status of 1.

-u

For the default case or the -m option, only output the first of a sequence of lines that compare equal. For the -c option, check that no pair of consecutive lines compares equal.

-d

Print only lines that are duplicates.

-U

Print only the first of lines that compare equal.

-m

merge sorted files.

-c

check sorted file.

Sort Options

-b

skip initial blank space (note that trailing whitespace is always skipped in sorttable).

-d

Sort in `phone directory' order: ignore all characters except letters, digits and blanks when sorting.

-F

Fold lower case characters into the equivalent upper case characters when sorting so that, for example, `b' is sorted the same way `B' is.

-I

Ignore characters outside the ASCII range 040-0176 octal (inclusive) when sorting.

-M

An initial string, consisting of any amount of white space, followed by three letters abbreviating a month name, is folded to UPPER case and compared in the order `JAN' < `FEB' < ... < `DEC.' Invalid names compare low to valid names.

-a

Compare using the ASCII collating sequence.

-n

Compare according to arithmetic value. an initial numeric string consisting of optional white space, an optional - sign, and zero or more digits, optionally followed by a decimal point and zero or more digits.

-h

Like -n except sexagasmal values are allowed (HH:MM:SSS.SS etc).

-r

Reverse the result of comparison, so that lines with greater key values appear earlier in the output instead of later.

COLUMN FLAGS

In addition a specific subset of characters in a key column may be selected is the sort key with the column range modifier.

To sort file on column XXX characters 3 through 5 inclusive.

	sorttable XXX.3-5 file

DESCRIPTION

A pair of lines is compared as follows: if any key fields have been specified, sort compares each pair of fields, in the order specified on the command line, according to the associated ordering options, until a difference is found or no fields are left.

If any of the program options Mbdfhinr are given but no key fields are specified, sort compares the entire lines according to the global options.

SEE ALSO

jointable

join two ASCII tab tables on matching key columns.

sort

sort lines of text.

starbase.1

ASCII tab tables introduction.

NOTES