NAME

datesort - Sort contents of FILE chronologically.

SYNOPSIS

datesort [OPTION]... [FILE]...

DESCRIPTION

Sort contents of FILE chronologically. If FILE is omitted read from stdin.

The first date/time value per line is the sort key. Dates without times account for a smaller value than any date/time on the same day. Times without dates account for a smaller value than any date or date/time. If a line contains no dates or times or date/times it is sorted towards the front.

Recognized OPTIONs:

-h, --help: Print help and exit
-V, --version: Print version and exit
-i, --input-format=STRING...: Input format, can be used multiple times. Each date/time will be passed to the input format parsers in the order they are given, if a date/time can be read successfully with a given input format specifier string, that value will be used.
-b, --base=DT: For underspecified input use DT as a fallback to fill in missing fields. Also used for ambiguous format specifiers to position their range on the absolute time line. Must be a date/time in ISO8601 format. If omitted defaults to the current date/time.
-e, --backslash-escapes: Enable interpretation of backslash escapes in the input format specifier strings.
--from-locale=LOCALE: Interpret dates on stdin or the command line as coming from the locale LOCALE, this would only affect month and weekday names as input formats have to be specified explicitly.
--from-zone=ZONE: Interpret dates on stdin or the command line as coming from the time zone ZONE.
-r, --reverse: Reverse the sort order.
-u, --unique: Print at most one line per date/time value.

FORMAT SPECS

Format specs in dateutils are similar to posix' strftime().

However, due to a broader range of supported calendars dateutils must employ different rules.

Date specs:



  %a  The abbreviated weekday name


  %A  The full weekday name


  %_a The weekday name shortened to a single character (MTWRFAS)


  %b  The abbreviated month name


  %B  The full month name


  %_b The month name shortened to a single character (FGHJKMNQUVXZ)


  %c  The count of the weekday within the month (range 00 to 05)


  %C  The count of the weekday within the year (range 00 to 53)


  %d  The day of the month, 2 digits (range 00 to 31)


  %D  The day of the year, 3 digits (range 000 to 366)


  %F  Equivalent to %Y-%m-%d (ymd's canonical format)


  %g  ISO week date year without the century (range 00 to 99)


  %G  ISO week date year including the century


  %j  Equivalent to %D


  %m  The month in the current calendar (range 00 to 19)


  %Q  The quarter of the year (range Q1 to Q4)


  %q  The number of the quarter (range 01 to 04)


  %s  The number of seconds since the Epoch.


  %u  The weekday as number (range 01 to 07, Sunday being 07)


  %U  The week count,  day of week is Sun (range 00 to 53)


  %V  The ISO week count,  day of week is Mon (range 01 to 53)


  %w  The weekday as number (range 00 to 06, Sunday being 00)


  %W  The week count,  day of week is Mon (range 00 to 53)


  %y  The year without a century (range 00 to 99)


  %Y  The year including the century


  %_y The year shortened to a single digit


  %Z  The zone offset in hours and minutes (HH:MM) with


      a preceding sign (+ for offsets east of UTC, - for offsets


      west of UTC)



  %Od The day as roman numerals


  %Om The month as roman numerals


  %Oy The two digit year as roman numerals


  %OY The year including the century as roman numerals



  %rs In time systems whose Epoch is different from the unix Epoch, this


      selects the number of seconds since then.


  %rY In calendars with years that don't coincide with the Gregorian


      years, this selects the calendar's year.



  %dth  The day of the month as an ordinal number, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.


  %mth  The month of the year as an ordinal number, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.



  %db The business day of the month (since last month's ultimo)


  %dB Number of business days until this month's ultimo

Time specs:



  %H  The hour of the day using a 24h clock, 2 digits (range 00 to 23)


  %I  The hour of the day using a 12h clock, 2 digits (range 01 to 12)


  %M  The minute (range 00 to 59)


  %N  The nanoseconds (range 000000000 to 999999999)


  %p  The string AM or PM, noon is PM and midnight is AM.


  %P  Like %p but in lowercase


  %S  The  (range 00 to 60, 60 is for leap seconds)


  %T  Equivalent to %H:%M:%S

General specs:



  %n  A newline character


  %t  A tab character


  %%  A literal % character

Modifiers:



  %O  Modifier to turn decimal numbers into Roman numerals


  %r  Modifier to turn units into real units


  th  Suffix, read and print ordinal numbers


  b   Suffix, treat days as business days

By design dates before 1601-01-01 are not supported.

For conformity here is a list of calendar designators and their corresponding format string:



  ymd     %Y-%m-%d


  ymcw    %Y-%m-%c-%w


  ywd     %rY-W%V-%u


  bizda   %Y-%m-%db


  lilian     n/a


  ldn        n/a


  julian     n/a


  jdn        n/a

These designators can be used as output format string, moreover, @code{lilian}/@code{ldn} and @code{julian}/@code{jdn} can also be used as input format string.

EXAMPLES



  $ datesort < "$@{srcdir@}/caev_01.txt"


  2009-06-03 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2009-06-03" nett/GBX="5.2"


  2010-11-17 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2010-11-17" nett/GBX="2.85"


  2011-11-16 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2011-11-16" nett/GBX="3.05"


  2012-06-06 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2012-06-06" nett/GBX="6.47"


  2013-06-12 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-06-12" nett/GBX="6.92"


  2013-11-20 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-11-20" nett/GBX="3.53"


  $



  $ datesort "$@{srcdir@}/caev_01.txt"


  2009-06-03 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2009-06-03" nett/GBX="5.2"


  2010-11-17 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2010-11-17" nett/GBX="2.85"


  2011-11-16 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2011-11-16" nett/GBX="3.05"


  2012-06-06 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2012-06-06" nett/GBX="6.47"


  2013-06-12 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-06-12" nett/GBX="6.92"


  2013-11-20 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-11-20" nett/GBX="3.53"


  $



  $ datesort -r < "$@{srcdir@}/caev_01.txt"


  2013-11-20 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-11-20" nett/GBX="3.53"


  2013-06-12 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-06-12" nett/GBX="6.92"


  2012-06-06 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2012-06-06" nett/GBX="6.47"


  2011-11-16 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2011-11-16" nett/GBX="3.05"


  2010-11-17 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2010-11-17" nett/GBX="2.85"


  2009-06-03 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2009-06-03" nett/GBX="5.2"


  $



  $ datesort -r "$@{srcdir@}/caev_01.txt"


  2013-11-20 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-11-20" nett/GBX="3.53"


  2013-06-12 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-06-12" nett/GBX="6.92"


  2012-06-06 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2012-06-06" nett/GBX="6.47"


  2011-11-16 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2011-11-16" nett/GBX="3.05"


  2010-11-17 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2010-11-17" nett/GBX="2.85"


  2009-06-03 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2009-06-03" nett/GBX="5.2"


  $



  $ datesort -u < "$@{srcdir@}/caev_02.txt"


  2009-06-03 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2009-06-03" nett/GBX="5.2"


  2010-11-17 caev="XXXX" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2010-11-17"


  2011-11-16 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2011-11-16" nett/GBX="3.05"


  2012-06-06 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2012-06-06" nett/GBX="6.47"


  2013-06-12 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-06-12" nett/GBX="6.92"


  2013-11-20 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-11-20" nett/GBX="3.53"


  $



  $ datesort -u "$@{srcdir@}/caev_02.txt"


  2009-06-03 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2009-06-03" nett/GBX="5.2"


  2010-11-17 caev="XXXX" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2010-11-17"


  2011-11-16 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2011-11-16" nett/GBX="3.05"


  2012-06-06 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2012-06-06" nett/GBX="6.47"


  2013-06-12 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-06-12" nett/GBX="6.92"


  2013-11-20 caev="DVCA" secu="VOD" exch="XLON" xdte="2013-11-20" nett/GBX="3.53"


  $

AUTHOR

Written by Sebastian Freundt <freundt@fresse.org>

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to: https://github.com/hroptatyr/dateutils/issues