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HTML rendering created 2026-05-24 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | AUTHOR | REPORTING BUGS | COPYRIGHT | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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SORT(1) User Commands SORT(1)
sort - sort lines of text files
sort [OPTION]... [FILE]...
sort [OPTION]... --files0-from=F
Write sorted concatenation of all FILE(s) to standard output.
With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short
options too. Ordering options:
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-b\-b, --ignore-leading-blanks]8;;\
ignore leading blanks when finding sort keys in each line
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-d\-d, --dictionary-order]8;;\
consider only blanks and alphanumeric characters
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-f\-f, --ignore-case]8;;\
fold lower case to upper case characters
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-g\-g, --general-numeric-sort]8;;\
compare according to general numerical value
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-i\-i, --ignore-nonprinting]8;;\
consider only printable characters
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-M\-M, --month-sort]8;;\
compare (unknown) < 'JAN' < ... < 'DEC'
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-h\-h, --human-numeric-sort]8;;\
compare human readable numbers (e.g., 2K 1G)
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-n\-n, --numeric-sort]8;;\
compare according to string numerical value; see full
documentation for supported strings
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-R\-R, --random-sort]8;;\
shuffle, but group identical keys. See also shuf(1)
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort--random-source\--random-source=FILE]8;;\
get random bytes from FILE
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-r\-r, --reverse]8;;\
reverse the result of comparisons
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort--sort\--sort=WORD]8;;\
sort according to WORD: general-numeric -g, human-numeric
-h, month -M, numeric -n, random -R, version -V
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-V\-V, --version-sort]8;;\
natural sort of (version) numbers within text
Other options:
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort--batch-size\--batch-size=NMERGE]8;;\
merge at most NMERGE inputs at once; for more use temp
files
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-c\-c, --check, --check=diagnose-first]8;;\
check for sorted input; do not sort
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-C\-C, --check=quiet, --check=silent]8;;\
like -c, but do not report first bad line
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort--compress-program\--compress-program=PROG]8;;\
compress temporaries with PROG; decompress them with PROG
-d
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort--debug\--debug]8;;\
annotate the part of the line used to sort, and warn about
questionable usage to standard error
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort--files0-from\--files0-from=F]8;;\
read input from the files specified by NUL-terminated names
in file F; If F is -, read names from standard input
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-k\-k, --key=KEYDEF]8;;\
sort via a key; KEYDEF gives location and type
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-m\-m, --merge]8;;\
merge already sorted files; do not sort
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-o\-o, --output=FILE]8;;\
write result to FILE instead of standard output
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-s\-s, --stable]8;;\
stabilize sort by disabling last-resort comparison
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-S\-S, --buffer-size=SIZE]8;;\
use SIZE for main memory buffer
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-t\-t, --field-separator=SEP]8;;\
use SEP instead of non-blank to blank transition
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-T\-T, --temporary-directory=DIR]8;;\
use DIR for temporaries, not $TMPDIR or /tmp; multiple
options specify multiple directories
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort--parallel\--parallel=N]8;;\
change the number of sorts run concurrently to N
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-u\-u, --unique]8;;\
output only the first of lines with equal keys; with -c,
check for strict ordering
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#sort-z\-z, --zero-terminated]8;;\
line delimiter is NUL, not newline
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sort#sort--help\--help]8;;\ display this help and exit
]8;;https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sort#sort--version\--version]8;;\
output version information and exit
KEYDEF is F[.C][OPTS][,F[.C][OPTS]] for start and stop position,
where F is a field number and C a character position in the field;
both are origin 1, and the stop position defaults to the line's
end. If neither -t nor -b is in effect, characters in a field are
counted from the beginning of the preceding whitespace. OPTS is
one or more single-letter ordering options [bdfgiMhnRrV], which
override global ordering options for that key. If no key is
given, use the entire line as the key. Use --debug to diagnose
incorrect key usage.
SIZE may be followed by the following multiplicative suffixes: %
1% of memory, b 1, K 1024 (default), and so on for M, G, T, P, E,
Z, Y, R, Q.
*** WARNING *** The locale specified by the environment affects
sort order. Set LC_ALL=C to get the traditional sort order that
uses native byte values.
Written by Mike Haertel and Paul Eggert.
Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Report any translation bugs to
<https://translationproject.org/team/>
Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+:
GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
shuf(1), uniq(1)
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/sort>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) sort invocation'
This page is part of the coreutils (basic file, shell and text
manipulation utilities) project. Information about the project
can be found at ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩. If you
have a bug report for this manual page, see
⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩. This page was obtained
from the tarball coreutils-9.11.tar.xz fetched from
⟨http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/⟩ on 2026-05-24. If you
discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the
page, or you have corrections or improvements to the information
in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
GNU coreutils 9.11 April 2026 SORT(1)
Pages that refer to this page: column(1), grep(1), look(1), prlimit(1), ps(1), rpmsort(1), sortman(1), uniq(1), qsort(3), strverscmp(3), environ(7)
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HTML rendering created 2026-05-24 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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