Sort Output of Loop and Display

Question

I have a script that loops through a directory and for each file counts the iterations of a certain word. When the script is run the number of iterations is output to the screen for each file. I however would like to first sort the list before it's output.

I know I need to output to sort somewhere, but I'm not sure how to implement this. In a non scripting language I would probably put the output of the loop into an array, but I don't think that's what's meant to be done with Bash.

for f in /home/reviews_folder/*
do
    tr -s ' ' '\n' < $f | grep - c '<Author>'
done

I don't think I would put the sort in the loop, so how would i create a pipeline between the loop and the sort?

cat /home/reviews_folder/* | tr -s ' ' '\n' | grep - c '<Author>' | sort? — Biffen
– Biffen, Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 14:50
Your current code doesn't appear to output filenames, just the counts. Also - c' looks like a typo — jhnc
– jhnc, Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 14:50
@Biffen You don't need the parentheses; a for loop is a command by itself. — chepner
– chepner, Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 15:07
Yeah I hadn't put in the code to output the filenames, but honestly I've been trying for a couple hours and can't figure out how. I was think it's something like | sort & & echo basename $FilePath but am not sure how to arrange it — Edgar Smith
– Edgar Smith, Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 17:59

chepner · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-08 15:09:45Z

5

A loop is a compound command, and each command in the body of the loop inherits its standard output from the loop. That means you can simply pipe the loop itself to sort.

for f in /home/reviews_folder/*; do
  tr -s ' ' '\n' < "$f" | grep -c '<Author>'
done | sort

answered Feb 8, 2019 at 15:09

chepner

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