How to sort comma separated values in bash?

Issue

I have some numbers like

7, 15, 6, 2, -9

I want to sort it like this in bash(from command line or either a script file)

-9, 2, 6, 7, 15

How can I do this? I am unable to get this using sort command.

Solution

echo "7, 15, 6, 2, -9" | sed -e $'s/,/\\\n/g' | sort -n | tr '\n' ',' | sed 's/.$//'

1. sed -e $'s/,/\\\n/g': For splitting string into lines by comma.
2. sort -n: Then you can use sort by number
3. tr '\n' ',': Covert newline separator back to comma.
4. sed 's/.$//': Removing tailing comma.

Not elegant enough, but it should work :p

Answered By – Yu-Lin Chen

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