-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Lee Winter <lee.j.i.win...@gmail.com> writes:
> In the discussion above you persist in mixing the sort function with > the sort command. They are not the same, so please be more careful in > your descriptions of what it is you want to accomplish. > > To sort with a function, such as is found in many programming > languages, you should create a data structure containing the value to > be sorted (the "key") and any audit/trance information you need about > the position of each item prior to the sort. After sorting such data > structures with the language's sort() function you will be able to > identify where each value started and ended. > > To sort with a command, such as is found in many command-line > envoronments, you should create lines of text, each containing the > value to be sorted (the "key") and followed by any audit/trace > information you need about the position of each item prior to the > sort. After sorting the text lines with the command-line > environment's text sorting utility you will be able to identify where > each value started and ended. > > The above descriptions answer the question you asked. But it appears > to me that the answer you need is related to a different question. > What do you need to do with the values after they are sorted? If you > have both the initially ordered list and the sorted list, why do you > care where things started as long as they are where they need to be > when you are done? Thanks for your answer, Lee. Sorry if, after having read my text, you think that I am mixing the sort function and the sort command. It was not my intention, as they are different things, both to you, and to me. I am here sorting with a _command_, this one being `sort'. Your idea of appending to each key, e.g. a number, is great. I had not thought about it. The question is now: how to append to lines some text? Okay, generating numbers so that n_1 < n_2 < ... < n_n is not difficult, but how can I redirect them to each line of a flux using bash? The problem is not so complex. I have files with names which are only constituted by numbers. Each file contains exactly one e-mail, but the `Received' field of each e-mail is not linked to the name of the file. For example, if I have three files, say `1' , `2' and `3', each containing an e-mail with headers, displaying only the `Received' field on each could give, for example: File 1 -> Received 2 Jan 2009 File 2 -> Received 7 Sep 2005 File 3 -> Received 3 Feb 2009 Once I have sorted the dates, and as the global `cat *' takes account of the order between numbers in the set of the integers (i.e. `cat *' is equivalent to `cat 1' and `cat 2' iff the current folder only contains `.', `..', `1' and `2'), I can then sort the dates. Before the sorting, the n-th date is related to the n-th e-mail's headers' `Received' field. After the sort, it may have completely no link. Consequently, I need to know which e-mail was received first, and consequently which date was moved at the beginning of the list. I hope I have been clear. I now need to be able to append increasing number to each line of the flux _before_ the sorting. Do you have an idea about how to implement this in bash? Thanks. - -- Merciadri Luca See http://www.student.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~merciadri/ - -- Don't have too many irons in the fire. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.8 <http://mailcrypt.sourceforge.net/> iEYEARECAAYFAktkExoACgkQM0LLzLt8MhzhxwCeIIgQnuvbDfVRoLvJgmgkY3qn 6sUAn2Su5tf6iHQfvi43ZJWAebWml6lm =W08e -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org