Sorting array by numbers and putting into another array in bash

Question

I want to sort an array of numbers and put into another array. The following code is what I found

IFS=$'\n' sorted=($(sort <<<"${array[*]}"))
unset IFS
echo "${sorted[*]}"

However, this does so by string

1 12 5 111 200 1000 10
1 10 1000 111 12 200 5

How do I get it sorted by number?

PesaThe · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-13 16:20:11Z

2

This code uses \0 as delimiter and is therefore suitable even for sorting non-numerical arrays:

arr=(4 2 3 1 5)
sorted=()

while IFS= read -r -d '' item; do
    sorted+=("$item")
done < <(printf '%s\0' "${arr[@]}" | sort -zn)

In bash 4.4 you can also utilize readarray:

readarray -d '' sorted < <(printf '%s\0' "${arr[@]}" | sort -zn)

answered Feb 13, 2018 at 16:20

PesaThe

7,5791 gold badge23 silver badges47 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

iamauser · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-14 02:30:37Z

1

Without modifying IFS.

$ p=(1 10 1000 111 12 200 5)
$ sorted_p=($(tr ' ' '\n' <<<"${p[@]}" | sort -n))
$ echo "${sorted_p[@]}"
1 5 10 12 111 200 1000

answered Feb 13, 2018 at 15:50

iamauser

11.6k6 gold badges40 silver badges57 bronze badges

The second tr is not really necessary :)

That's right. I pasted from a test I was doing with echo at that moment. Edited...