Sort Lines

Alphabetical is not one thing

It is tempting to think alphabetical order is obvious and universal, and it is neither. Computers sort by character code, which means every uppercase letter sorts before every lowercase one — so a naive sort puts 'Zebra' ahead of 'apple', which is technically consistent and clearly not what anyone wanted. Accented characters raise the same question with no single answer: should 'é' sit with 'e' or after 'z'? French says with 'e'; some Scandinavian alphabets put their accented letters firmly at the end, after 'z', and are quite right to. Numbers embedded in text are the most common trap of all, which is why 'file10' sorts before 'file9' in almost every file manager you have ever used. Knowing which sort you are getting is the difference between a list that looks right and one that quietly is not.

Sorting as a diagnostic, not just a tidy-up

Sorting a list is one of the fastest ways to see what is actually in it. Duplicates that were scattered through a thousand lines become adjacent and instantly obvious the moment you sort. Typos surface, because 'Smith' and 'Smtih' land nowhere near each other and the odd one out stands proud. Inconsistent formatting reveals itself — all the entries that were entered with a leading space cluster together at the top, and every date typed in the wrong format sorts into its own strange block. Length sorting exposes truncated entries and stray blank lines. Before you analyse a list, sort it and look at it; the anomalies will announce themselves without you having to hunt for them.