Sort Lines

This section is up to date for TED Notepad version 6.3.1.0.
Control page Control:feature:Sort Lines

Sort.. (Alt+Ctrl+S)

Sorts lines of the selection according to the given sorting keys.

Upto five sorting keys can be used, each sorting key represented by its own tab in the Sort Lines dialog: First, Second, Third, Then, and Finally. Sorting keys are used subsequently ony by one, i.e. if two lines are considered equal acording to the First key, then the Second key is used, etc. In other words, to have the Finally key harnessed/employed, all four preceeding sorting keys must yield indecisive comparison.

Note: Each sorting key offer a special Nothing option, which turns off the entire key. Such key is not used for comparing lines upon sorting, but it does not prevent later sorting keys from being queried. Using Nothing option has the same effect as setting up a sorting key, which would always yield indecisive comparison.

Note: Sorting keys are used only to compare and sort the lines, e.g. to decide, which one goes first and which one will be the second one. The lines themselves are not being modified, only their order.

Cutting line portion

Each sorting key may cut a portion of a line, which is used for comparison upon sorting.

Cutting portion of a line is divided into two successive parts. First, columns are cut from the line, by either:

• Entire line, which keeps the entire original line.
• Columns, which allows to specify one or more subsequent columns between columns from and columns to (inclusive). Individual columns are separated by characters from Delimiting characters, which means that the line is scanned for these delimiting characters, and wherever a delimiting character is found (any character from Delimiting characters), old column ends before this delimiter and a new column begins after this delimiter. There can be as many delimiting characters as necessary and all of them delimit columns equally and indiscriminately.
  • Optionally, Delimit by entire phrase rather than separate characters can be used to stop treating Delimiting characters as a set of individual characters, and scan for an entire delimiting phrase instead.
  • Optionally, Treat any sequence of delimiters as single delimiter can be used to count several successive delimiters as a single delimiter. This can be useful, for example, if input columns are aligned by spaces into neat visual columns, where each two columns are delimited by an arbitrary-length sequence of spaces. Such sequences need to be treated as indivisible column delimiters.
    • Note that even different delimiting characters are treated as a single indivisible delimiter, if found in sequence.
  • Optionally, Calculate columns backwards: from right to left can be used to numerate the columns from the end of line rather than the usual way. Note, however, that this only affects how the columns are numbered before they are cut; the text of the columns is not reversed.
  • Note: Delimiters are not included within the column being cut. However, if two or more subsequent columns are cut together, inner delimiters are not removed and become part of the line portion being cut.
  • Note: Delimiting characters are always case sensitive.
  • Examples: A line HELLO WORLD would be divided into:
    • two columns (HELLO and WORLD) — if delimited by a Space character;
    • four columns (H, LL,  W and RLD) — if delimited by a set of EO characters;
    • four columns (HE, {empty}, O WOR and D) — if delimited by an L character;
      • but only three columns (HE, O WOR and D) — if Treat any sequence of delimiters as single delimiter option is turned on;
    • and only one column (HELLO WORLD) — if delimited by an X character, lower case e character, or if delimited by no characters — this is because none of these characters are found on the examined line.

Note: Columns are cut for each line separately, therefore the total number of columns on a line may vary from line to line. If specified column number is beyond the total number of columns, empty zero-length portion is cut for such column from that line. Therefore, it is allowed to cut columns 2-7, even though some lines do not have enough columns to offer.

After the first part (cutting columns from the line), the resulting portion of the line can be further cropped by turning Use only characters option on, and specifying a range of character positions between from position and to position. This cuts off everyting before the from position and everyting after the to position.

• Calculate the position backwards: from right to left can be used to numerate the character positions from the end of line rather than the usual way. Note, however, that this only affects how the positions are numbered before they are cropped; the text itself is not reversed.

Note: Range of character positions is always cropped after columns are cut. If a range is specified beyond currently cut columns, empty zero-length portion is cropped from that line, even if the original line continues after the cut columns. In other words, range of character positions cannot bring back what has already been cut off by previous step.

Note: There is currently no way to cut columns after cropping a range of character positions.

Note: Column preview button displays a small portion of lines transformed by current dialog values. Be aware that preview is always generated from the current selection. If there is no selection, then there is nothing to preview.

Direction and format

The meaning of each sorting key is specified by Sort as options.

• Text option tells that each portion of line previously cut is to be treated as a simple string of characters upon comparison — comparison of two strings of characters is done lexicographically, i.e. by subsequently comparing each pair of corresponding characters from both strings (the first pair of different characters is the one that decides which string is greater).
  • Note: Character case can be ignored upon lexicographical comparison, as well as entire characters and character types. See below.
• Numbers option tells that each portion of line previously cut is to be treated as a number upon comparison — comparison of two numbers is done by their natural order.
  • A number may, in general, consist of a sign, numerals, decimal point and more numerals. Any of those may be omitted, e.g. 3.14, +2.0, 2., -7, .3 are all valid numbers. Total count of digits in a number is not limited. Note that individual separate decimal point or positive/negative sign character with no numerals, as well as empty number, are all treated as 0.
  • Note: System locale settings (Regional settings) are used while comparing numbers. This includes decimal point, positive and negative signs, thousands separator, etc.
  • Note: All alpha-numeric characters are considered valid numerals, thus hexadecimal numbers (or any other system with radix upto 36) are supported. All numbers must share the same radix, however.
  • Note: All white-spaces are automatically ignored upon comparing numbers. Character case is ignored as well.
  • Note: The first unrecognized and non-ignored character after a recognizable number terminates that number. Any following text is ignored. Note, however, that all alpha-numeric characters are considered valid numerals and white-spaces are ignored, thus mystifying 3 pigs is a valid number, which is bigger than 3 cows, but is far far less than 1 elephant. This is because both 3pigs and 3cows have only 5 digits while 1elephant has 9 digits. It is the same as if comparing numbers 37198, 32048 and 131375429.
  • See chapter Appendix for further details and examples of recognized number formats.

Each sorting key can specify the resulting order of sorted lines using the Direction with two intuitive options: Ascending or Descending.

options

Additional options are available to further modify, which characters are compared and which are ignored upon comparison.

• Ignore case option can be used to compare lines in case insensitive manner. This option is implicit upon Sort as Numbers.
• Ignore white-spaces option can be used to ignore all white-spaces upon comparison. This option is implicit upon Sort as Numbers.
• Ignore punctuation option can be used to ignore all punctuation characters upon comparison. System locale settings and system unicode tables are used to identify punctuation characters.
• Ignore blank characters option can be used to ignore all blank characters upon comparison. System unicode tables are used to identify blank characters — invisible spacing characters.
• Ignore control characters option can be used to ignore all control characters upon comparison. System unicode tables are used to identify control characters — non-printable characters with special meaning.
• Ignore all but alpha-numeric characters option can be used to ignore all but alpha-numeric characters upon comparison. System unicode tables are used to identify alpha-numeric characters, which include letters and symbols from many different languages.
• Ignore characters option can be used to manually specify individual characters to be ignored upon comparison. Note that characters from this option are always case sensitive.
• Ignore all but option can be used to manually specify individual characters to be accepted upon comparison, while ignoring any other characters. Note that characters from this option are always case sensitive.

If a character is to be ignored upon comparison, it is as if all occurrences of such character were deleted before the comparison. Note, however, that the characters are never physically removed from the lines — the resulting lines are not modified by this tool.

Note: Set of characters to be actually ignored upon comparison is a union of all ignored characters as specified by the options above. Note that even if Ignore all but option specifies some character, Ignore characters option can take it off the table.

See also Sort Lines Ascending, Sort Lines Descending and Sort Lines tools.

See also Shuffle Lines tool.