/usr/share/doc/bash/examples/functions/sort-pos-params is in bash-doc 4.3-14ubuntu1.2.
This file is owned by root:root, with mode 0o644.
The actual contents of the file can be viewed below.
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# Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu>
#
# Copyright 2001 Chester Ramey
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
# any later version.
#
# TThis program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
# Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
# Sort the positional paramters.
# Make sure the positional parameters are passed as arguments to the function.
# If -u is the first arg, remove duplicate array members.
sort_posparams()
{
local -a R
local u
case "$1" in
-u) u=-u ; shift ;;
esac
# if you want the case of no positional parameters to return success,
# remove the error message and return 0
if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
echo "$FUNCNAME: argument expected" >&2
return 1
fi
# make R a copy of the positional parameters
R=( "${@}" )
# sort R.
R=( $( printf "%s\n" "${R[@]}" | sort $u) )
printf "%s\n" "${R[@]}"
return 0
}
# will print everything on separate lines
set -- 3 1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5 3 2
sort_posparams "$@"
# sets without preserving quoted parameters
set -- $( sort_posparams "$@" )
echo "$@"
echo $#
# sets preserving quoted parameters, beware pos params with embedded newlines
set -- 'a b' 'a c' 'x z'
oifs=$IFS
IFS=$'\n'
set -- $( sort_posparams "$@" )
IFS="$oifs"
echo "$@"
echo $#
sort_posparams
|