From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tim Landscheidt Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: TIL about string-rectangle Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2020 14:32:08 +0000 Organization: http://www.tim-landscheidt.de/ Message-ID: <87pn2qjbbr.fsf@passepartout.tim-landscheidt.de> References: <87a6tvkmaf.fsf@passepartout.tim-landscheidt.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="33664"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/27.1 (gnu/linux) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Cancel-Lock: sha1:6tD7qjbz9E8doFfsYOs44P6nM9Y= Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Thu Dec 31 15:32:57 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kuz0b-0008gP-EB for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 31 Dec 2020 15:32:57 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:39292 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kuz0a-0004w0-D5 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 31 Dec 2020 09:32:56 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:46626) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kuyzw-0004vE-PT for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 31 Dec 2020 09:32:16 -0500 Original-Received: from ciao.gmane.io ([116.202.254.214]:44920) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kuyzu-0006f6-Pz for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 31 Dec 2020 09:32:16 -0500 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.io with local (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kuyzt-0007ad-3j for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 31 Dec 2020 15:32:13 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Received-SPF: pass client-ip=116.202.254.214; envelope-from=geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; helo=ciao.gmane.io X-Spam_score_int: -16 X-Spam_score: -1.7 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.7 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS=0.249, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.help:126936 Archived-At: Skip Montanaro wrote: >> For complex sorts, I once wrote a function that enhances >> sort-regexp-fields (and needs a docstring and comments that >> I could understand after eight years): ... > Thanks. I've used the Unix sort(1) command for a few decades now. It's > kind of burned into my brain. I know Emacs Lisp is exceedingly > powerful (I used it as my Lisp interpreter as the one and only Lisp > class I took), but sort(1) does just what I wanted here other than not > terminating the third (year) field at the comma. It's kind of hard to > argue with its economy. Regular expressions are quite handy, but also > pretty verbose for this task. No doubt. For me, it's the other way round: Whenever "sort", "sort -n" or "sort -h" is not sufficient, I (usual- ly) resort to Emacs or Perl. I have looked at sort's -k option a thousand times and never used it successfully. Tim