Unix (Solaris) sort of ls -l output, with numeric names

Question

Given an ls -l list of directories which are software release versions, how to sort into human-preferable form? Eg:

$ ls -loghF
total 209
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jun 18 11:33 12.0.40.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 24 14:45 13.0.11.10/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 13 14:12 13.0.11.4/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 26 15:30 13.0.11.5/
drwxr-xr-x   2       4 Jul 27 11:33 13.0.11.6/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug  3 11:41 13.0.11.7/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 10 11:53 13.0.11.8/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 17 17:00 13.0.11.9/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug  3 14:37 13.0.17.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 13 11:50 13.0.18.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 17 11:21 13.0.19.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 28 15:00 13.0.9.1/

The desired result is:

$ ls -loghF | sort ...
total 209
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jun 18 11:33 12.0.40.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 28 15:00 13.0.9.1/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 13 14:12 13.0.11.4/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 26 15:30 13.0.11.5/
drwxr-xr-x   2       4 Jul 27 11:33 13.0.11.6/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug  3 11:41 13.0.11.7/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 10 11:53 13.0.11.8/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 17 17:00 13.0.11.9/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 24 14:45 13.0.11.10/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug  3 14:37 13.0.17.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 13 11:50 13.0.18.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 17 11:21 13.0.19.0/

The sort must skip past the date portion of each line, then sort numerically (eg, starting with the 12 or 13), using '.' as a field separator.

I thought of two approaches, but am having difficulty with the sort -k syntax, if it's supported at all:

(1) Skip the first 36 characters, then with '.' as field separator, sort numerically on the next 4 fields.

(2) With field separator as whitespace, skip to the 7th field, then change the field separator to '.' and sort numerically on the next 4 fields.

The alternate is a little Perl script, but can't Unix sort do this "simple" task?

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 10:34:41Z

2

Here's a command line which uses awk to put the version numbers first, sorts using four numerical keys, then uses cut to get rid of the temporary at front:

$ ls -loghF | awk '{ print $7, $0; }' | sort -n -t. -k1,1 -k2,2 -k3,3 -k4,4 | cut -d' ' -f2-
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jun 18 11:33 12.0.40.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 28 15:00 13.0.9.1/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 13 14:12 13.0.11.4/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 26 15:30 13.0.11.5/
drwxr-xr-x   2       4 Jul 27 11:33 13.0.11.6/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug  3 11:41 13.0.11.7/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 10 11:53 13.0.11.8/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 17 17:00 13.0.11.9/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 24 14:45 13.0.11.10/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug  3 14:37 13.0.17.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 13 11:50 13.0.18.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 17 11:21 13.0.19.0/

The sort command there is borrowed from this answer. Another answer suggests sort -V (version sort), but my version of sort doesn't have it (yours might, though, so it's worth trying). Version sort is likely to be specific to newer GNU coreutils (my Linux box has it, and sort is from GNU Coreutils 8.5).

With version sort:

$ ls -loghF | sort -k7,7V
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jun 18 11:33 12.0.40.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 28 15:00 13.0.9.1/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 13 14:12 13.0.11.4/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 26 15:30 13.0.11.5/
drwxr-xr-x   2       4 Jul 27 11:33 13.0.11.6/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug  3 11:41 13.0.11.7/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 10 11:53 13.0.11.8/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 17 17:00 13.0.11.9/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 24 14:45 13.0.11.10/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug  3 14:37 13.0.17.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 13 11:50 13.0.18.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 17 11:21 13.0.19.0/

edited May 23, 2017 at 10:34

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answered Aug 27, 2012 at 5:17

nneonneo

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11 Comments

Jonathan Leffler Over a year ago

Solaris sort is rather unlikely to have such options as version-number or 'natural' sorting.

nneonneo Over a year ago

What do you mean by 'natural' sorting? Note that GNU coreutils can be installed on a lot of machines, so it's not impossible to have sort -V on Solaris.

Jonathan Leffler Over a year ago

See natural-sort for examples. See also Coding Horror. Etc.

Jonathan Leffler Over a year ago

Of course you can add GNU coreutils to the machine; but you'd never put that lot in /usr/bin on Solaris, not if you value your sanity. Don't touch /bin or /usr/bin on any machine unless you're very confident that every script provided with the system will be happy with the changed semantics of the commands.

John DB Over a year ago

Thanks folks, but if I have to script it, I'll use Perl - no awk'ing. Can sort handle this directly? It seems the key point is, how to use multiple field separators, or combining a field separator with a numeric field counter.

|

Jonathan Leffler · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-27 05:19:58Z

1

This isn't the fastest way to do it, but it is fairly simple to explain:

ls -loghF |
awk '{ print $7 " " $0 }' |
sort -t. -k 1,1n -k 2,2n -k3,3n -k 4,4n |
sed 's/^[^ ]* //'

The 'awk' command copies the directory field to the front of the line; the sort command only uses a single delimiter (.; I don't think you can use different delimiters for different parts of a line) and then sorts the 4 numeric parts explicitly in numeric order. Then the sed removes the field that was added at the front.

This is a simple version of 'make it easy for sort to find the keys', because splitting the input is one of the expensive operations in sort.

answered Aug 27, 2012 at 5:19

Jonathan Leffler

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Comments

John DB · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-31 04:29:00Z

1

FYI: Here's what I ended up doing.
Special thanks to: http://www.sysarch.com/Perl/sort_paper.html

$ ls -loghF | perl -e '
use strict;
my @in = <>;
my @out = grep(m|\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+/$|, @in);
print sort {
    my @aa = $a =~
            m|(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)/$|;
    my @bb = $b =~
            m|(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)/$|;
    $aa[0] <=> $bb[0] or
    $aa[1] <=> $bb[1] or
    $aa[2] <=> $bb[2] or
    $aa[3] <=> $bb[3]
    } @out;
'

drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jun 18 11:33 12.0.40.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 28 15:00 13.0.9.1/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 13 14:12 13.0.11.4/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Jul 26 15:30 13.0.11.5/
drwxr-xr-x   2       4 Jul 27 11:33 13.0.11.6/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug  3 11:41 13.0.11.7/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 10 11:53 13.0.11.8/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 17 17:00 13.0.11.9/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 24 14:45 13.0.11.10/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 29 17:31 13.0.11.11/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug  3 14:37 13.0.17.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 13 11:50 13.0.18.0/
drwxr-xr-x   2       3 Aug 17 11:21 13.0.19.0/

answered Aug 31, 2012 at 4:29

John DB

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1 Comment

John DB Over a year ago

The earlier awk solution is better as a one line command, but I use the solution above because I run run in the context of another Perl script, so the Perl stuff is already available.

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