Sort 1.3 (2-3-97) © Frédéric RODRIGUES freeware
Best sort command

Works with all amigas.

WHAT IS IT ?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Someday I looked for a command on aminet wich could sort the INDEX file
because I build a file with a comment for the files I download from aminet.
All I could find were clones of amiga sort command (some faster, some
shorter). But I need a sort command wich do this :
"I want to sort lines by ranges (like unix sort)"
My Sort command have the following options :
COLSTART/K,COLEND/K,CASE/S,REVERSE/S
                |                 |
                V                 V
               NEW !             for free

I will explain the WONDERFULL interest of COLEND option. For that I give you
an example :

Consider this file:

SmallC.lha         dev/c       41K 447+Port of the Small-C compiler.
SourcOpt.lha       dev/asm     12K 227+Assembly source optimizier
Examples.lha       dev/asm    186K 397+Misc example assembly programs.
emptyhandler.lha   dev/c        4K 231+filehandler ex., make empty files
AsmExamples.lha    dev/asm      7K 427+Two assembly code examples.
SFPatch.lha        dev/c        8K  82+How to SetFunction()/Patch library functions.

after use of this:
> Sort <up >a COLEND 19
> Sort <a >down COLSTART 20 COLEND 29

I obtain:

AsmExamples.lha    dev/asm      7K 427+Two assembly code examples.
Examples.lha       dev/asm    186K 397+Misc example assembly programs.
SourcOpt.lha       dev/asm     12K 227+Assembly source optimizier
emptyhandler.lha   dev/c        4K 231+filehandler ex., make empty files
SFPatch.lha        dev/c        8K  82+How to SetFunction()/Patch library functions.
SmallC.lha         dev/c       41K 447+Port of the Small-C compiler.

YES I CAN SORT BY MULTIPLE RANGES. First a sort by directory, then by
file. Tanks to that, sorting becomes so easy ! It's like excel : you sort by
one column descending (with the REVERSE option - try it !), another
ascending, another descending, etc ... until infinite. YEAR !
I programed Sort in E (© Wouter van Oortmerssen). If you don't know it, I
suggest you take a look on aminet/dev/e.

OPTIONS
~~~~~~~
COLSTART/K - start of the range (1 by default)
COLEND/K - end of the range (unlimited by default)
CASE/S - if you want case separation (A<>a) use it
REVERSE/S - if you want sort in reverse mode (z before a)

TECHNICS
~~~~~~~~
I use a very efficient algorythm to load file into memory. It's faster than
FGets() of v36 dos.library ! I make usage of chained strings (very easy to
do in E). This way I need a minimum of memory to load the file in. My
sorting algorythm is very fast. I don't use arp.library to parse the
command line under 1.3 because I use my own routine. Good for you 1.3 users
! If you read the text until here you probably know there is an internal
dynamic buffer where to read the file. That's why COLEND is unlimited. This
means lines can have any number of characters and you can load any number of
lines of course.

LEGAL STUFF
~~~~~~~~~~~
Sort is freeware. Keep all files together if you distribute it.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.


HOW TO REACH ME ?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by email : rodrigue@iles.siera.ups-tlse.fr (IP 130.120.84.50)
by mail : Frédéric RODRIGUES
          4 allées Antonio Machado app 3009D
          31100 Toulouse

Come on (e)mail me for anything !

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO     CRC       STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
[generic]                 2124    3540  60.0% -lh5- df95 Mar  5  1997 Sort
[generic]                 1845    3931  46.9% -lh5- ffd5 Mar  6  1997 Sort.doc
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
 Total         2 files    3969    7471  53.1%            Mar 28  1997