| ActiveTcl User Guide |

## Tcl/Tk Documentation > TclCmd > lsort

### Tcl/Tk Applications | Tcl Commands | Tk Commands | Tcl Library | Tk Library

  NAME
    lsort - Sort the elements of a list
  SYNOPSIS
    lsort ?options? list
  DESCRIPTION
    -ascii
    -dictionary
    -integer
    -real
    -command command
    -increasing
    -decreasing
    -indices
    -index indexList
    -nocase
    -unique
  NOTES
  EXAMPLES
  SEE ALSO
  KEYWORDS

### NAME

lsort - Sort the elements of a list

### SYNOPSIS

lsort ?options? list

### DESCRIPTION

This command sorts the elements of list, returning a new list in sorted order. The implementation of the lsort command uses the merge-sort algorithm which is a stable sort that has O(n log n) performance characteristics.

By default ASCII sorting is used with the result returned in increasing order. However, any of the following options may be specified before list to control the sorting process (unique abbreviations are accepted):

-ascii
  Use string comparison with Unicode code-point collation order (the name is for backward-compatibility reasons.) This is the default.
-dictionary
  Use dictionary-style comparison. This is the same as -ascii except (a) case is ignored except as a tie-breaker and (b) if two strings contain embedded numbers, the numbers compare as integers, not characters. For example, in -dictionary mode, bigBoy sorts between bigbang and bigboy, and x10y sorts between x9y and x11y.
-integer
  Convert list elements to integers and use integer comparison.
-real
  Convert list elements to floating-point values and use floating comparison.
-command command
  Use command as a comparison command. To compare two elements, evaluate a Tcl script consisting of command with the two elements appended as additional arguments. The script should return an integer less than, equal to, or greater than zero if the first element is to be considered less than, equal to, or greater than the second, respectively.
-increasing
  Sort the list in increasing order (“smallest”items first). This is the default.
-decreasing
  Sort the list in decreasing order (“largest”items first).
-indices
  Return a list of indices into list in sorted order instead of the values themselves.
-index indexList
  If this option is specified, each of the elements of list must itself be a proper Tcl sublist. Instead of sorting based on whole sublists, lsort will extract the indexList'th element from each sublist (as if the overall element and the indexList were passed to lindex) and sort based on the given element. For example,

      lsort -integer -index 1 \
            {{First 24} {Second 18} {Third 30}}

  returns {Second 18} {First 24} {Third 30}, and

      lsort -index end-1 \
            {{a 1 e i} {b 2 3 f g} {c 4 5 6 d h}}

  returns {c 4 5 6 d h} {a 1 e i} {b 2 3 f g}, and

      lsort -index {0 1} {
         {{b i g} 12345}
         {{d e m o} 34512}
         {{c o d e} 54321}
      }

  returns {{d e m o} 34512} {{b i g} 12345} {{c o d e} 54321} (because e sorts before i which sorts before o.) This option is much more efficient than using -command to achieve the same effect.
-nocase
  Causes comparisons to be handled in a case-insensitive manner. Has no effect if combined with the -dictionary, -integer, or -real options.
-unique
  If this option is specified, then only the last set of duplicate elements found in the list will be retained. Note that duplicates are determined relative to the comparison used in the sort. Thus if -index 0 is used, {1 a} and {1 b} would be considered duplicates and only the second element, {1 b}, would be retained.

### NOTES

The options to lsort only control what sort of comparison is used, and do not necessarily constrain what the values themselves actually are. This distinction is only noticeable when the list to be sorted has fewer than two elements.

The lsort command is reentrant, meaning it is safe to use as part of the implementation of a command used in the -command option.

### EXAMPLES

Sorting a list using ASCII sorting:

    % lsort {a10 B2 b1 a1 a2}
    B2 a1 a10 a2 b1

Sorting a list using Dictionary sorting:

    % lsort -dictionary {a10 B2 b1 a1 a2}
    a1 a2 a10 b1 B2

Sorting lists of integers:

    % lsort -integer {5 3 1 2 11 4}
    1 2 3 4 5 11
    % lsort -integer {1 2 0x5 7 0 4 -1}
    -1 0 1 2 4 0x5 7

Sorting lists of floating-point numbers:

    % lsort -real {5 3 1 2 11 4}
    1 2 3 4 5 11
    % lsort -real {.5 0.07e1 0.4 6e-1}
    0.4 .5 6e-1 0.07e1

Sorting using indices:

    % # Note the space character before the c
    % lsort {{a 5} { c 3} {b 4} {e 1} {d 2}}
    { c 3} {a 5} {b 4} {d 2} {e 1}
    % lsort -index 0 {{a 5} { c 3} {b 4} {e 1} {d 2}}
    {a 5} {b 4} { c 3} {d 2} {e 1}
    % lsort -index 1 {{a 5} { c 3} {b 4} {e 1} {d 2}}
    {e 1} {d 2} { c 3} {b 4} {a 5}

Stripping duplicate values using sorting:

    % lsort -unique {a b c a b c a b c}
    a b c

More complex sorting using a comparison function:

    % proc compare {a b} {
        set a0 [lindex $a 0]
        set b0 [lindex $b 0]
        if {$a0 < $b0} {
            return -1
        } elseif {$a0 > $b0} {
            return 1
        }
        return [string compare [lindex $a 1] [lindex $b 1]]
    }
    % lsort -command compare \
            {{3 apple} {0x2 carrot} {1 dingo} {2 banana}}
    {1 dingo} {2 banana} {0x2 carrot} {3 apple}

### SEE ALSO

list, lappend, lindex, linsert, llength, lsearch, lset, lrange, lreplace

### KEYWORDS

element, list, order, sort
Copyright © 1995-1997 Roger E. Critchlow Jr. Copyright © 1993 The Regents of the University of California. Copyright © 1994-1996 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Copyright © 1999 Scriptics Corporation Copyright © 2001 Kevin B. Kenny <kennykb(at)acm.org>. All rights reserved.