M-x sort-fields

M-x sort-fields

[Raimund.Kohl]

Hello,

I do have files with coloumns of either text or digits and want to sort
them by date. How do I do that? If I use M-x sort-field it doesn't accept
a numeric argument ... at least not the way I try to put it in. Here an
example:

blahblah  &  12.2.  & 132,40  &  10,20
blubblub  &  15.5.  &  15,40  &   2,23
bleblebb  &  1.4.   &  10,00  &   1,00

I want to sort the lines according the date of the third column (given the
"&" sign is a column of it's own). If I understood the manual correctly I
am to mark the "b" of the first line and the "0" of the last line and then
command M-x sort-fields with the column as a numeric argument to which it
all lines shall become sorted. Anybody to help me here?

Thank you in advvance

ray

Re: M-x sort-fields

[Barry Margolin]

In article <mailman.1037917702.29749.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
 <Raimund.Kohl@freenet.de> wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I do have files with coloumns of either text or digits and want to sort
>them by date. How do I do that? If I use M-x sort-field it doesn't accept
>a numeric argument ... at least not the way I try to put it in. Here an
>example:
>
>blahblah  &  12.2.  & 132,40  &  10,20
>blubblub  &  15.5.  &  15,40  &   2,23
>bleblebb  &  1.4.   &  10,00  &   1,00
>
>I want to sort the lines according the date of the third column (given the
>"&" sign is a column of it's own). If I understood the manual correctly I
>am to mark the "b" of the first line and the "0" of the last line and then
>command M-x sort-fields with the column as a numeric argument to which it
>all lines shall become sorted. Anybody to help me here?

M-3 M-x sort-fields

is the way to specify that it should sort on column 3.  When I do that, I
get:

>bleblebb  &  1.4.   &  10,00  &   1,00
>blahblah  &  12.2.  & 132,40  &  10,20
>blubblub  &  15.5.  &  15,40  &   2,23

Note that the sort is lexicographic, not numeric, so 8.4 will go *after*
12.2.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@genuity.net
Genuity, Woburn, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.

Re: M-x sort-fields

[jrivers77]

Barry Margolin <barmar@genuity.net> writes:

> In article <mailman.1037917702.29749.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
>  <Raimund.Kohl@freenet.de> wrote:
> 
> M-3 M-x sort-fields
> 
> is the way to specify that it should sort on column 3.  When I do that, I
> get:
> 
> >bleblebb  &  1.4.   &  10,00  &   1,00
> >blahblah  &  12.2.  & 132,40  &  10,20
> >blubblub  &  15.5.  &  15,40  &   2,23
> 
> Note that the sort is lexicographic, not numeric, so 8.4 will go *after*
> 12.2.
> 

And if you want them sorted numerically, you can use sort-numeric-fields
in the same way.

-- JC

Re: M-x sort-fields

[Kai Großjohann]

jrivers77@yahoo.com writes:

> And if you want them sorted numerically, you can use
> sort-numeric-fields in the same way.

Well, but sorting European date format numerically doesn't make sense,
either.  For instance, 1.4 > 1.10 but 1 April is less than 1
October...

Maybe Raymund can tell LaTeX to accept ISO-ish dates as input and to
print European date format.  Then sorting lexicographically will DTRT.

kai
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