sort

1. application, algorithm To arrange a collection of items

in some specified order. The items - records in a file or

data structures in memory - consist of one or more fields or

members. One of these fields is designated as the "sort key"

which means the records will be ordered according to the value

of that field. Sometimes a sequence of key fields is

specified such that if all earlier keys are equal then the

later keys will be compared. Within each field some ordering

is imposed, e.g. ascending or descending numerical, lexicalordering, or date.

Sorting is the subject of a great deal of study since it is a

common operation which can consume a lot of computer time.

There are many well-known sorting algorithms with different

time and space behaviour and programming complexity.

Examples are quicksort, insertion sort, bubble sort,

heap sort, and tree sort. These employ many different

data structures to store sorted data, such as arrays,

linked lists, and binary trees.

2. tool The Unix utility program for sorting lines of

files.

Unix manual page: sort(1).

(1997-02-12)