how do i alphabetize a list from a text file?

[ardouronerous]

I have a list of names and contact numbers that is in a txt file, however, the names aren't alphabetized and makes it difficult to navigate through, how do I alphabetize the list?

I'm running Lubuntu 16.04.

[sudodus]

Please show a typical line from your text file and tell us how you want to alphabetize it. (I would guess that you want to sort it by first name or family name, but I don't know where you have the names in your text files.)

[vasa1]

Please show a typical line from your text file and tell us how you want to alphabetize it. (I would guess that you want to sort it by first name or family name, but I don't know where you have the names in your text files.)

+1

The more data OP shares, the easier it will be to answer correctly. Otherwise, one can recommend
man sort or other online resources such as
https://www.computerhope.com/unix/usort.htm or
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/c...files9?lang=en or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sort_(Unix)

[TheFu]

I have a list of names and contact numbers that is in a txt file, however, the names aren't alphabetized and makes it difficult to navigate through, how do I alphabetize the list?

I'm running Lubuntu 16.04.

sort, but this sounds like a homework question.

[ardouronerous]

The list is like this;

Sarandon, Susan - XXX-XXX-XXX
Cruise, Tom - XXX-XXX-XXX
Bale, Christian - XXX-XXX-XXX
Goldblum, Jeff - XXX-XXX-XXX

As you can see the list isn't in alphabetical order, I'd like to alphabetize the list.

[sudodus]

If you want to sort according to family name, it is very easy. Assume that the list is in a file with the name unsorted-list.txt,

sort unsorted-list.txt > sorted-list.txt

and the sorted (alphabetized) result is in the file sorted-list.txt.

[ardouronerous]

Thank you, that worked!

[Buntu Bunny]

gedit will alphabetize a list for you too.

[vasa1]

As will LibreOffice Calc and Geany.

[coffeecat]

... LibreOffice Writer and Pluma too....

By the way, you need to activate the sort plugin in preferences in both gedit and pluma before sort appears in their menus. Or at least I had to in Ubuntu 16.04.