Sort and Reverse Sort a Selection of Text or File in Vim
![blog/cards/sort-and-reverse-sort-a-selection-of-text-or-file-in-vim.jpg](/assets/blog/cards/sort-and-reverse-sort-a-selection-of-text-or-file-in-vim-9552dd6a1283758e7f891cf42e47aca42c165f8dc3defb627c143258b46ecc76.jpg)
Sorting text is useful, such as sorting dependencies or package imports. Here's how to quickly do it with the built in sort command.
Quick Jump: Demo Video
This is a 2 minute video going over how to sort (sort
), reverse sort (sort!
) and uniquely sort (sort u
) text in Vim. You can also combine them together such as reverse unique sorting text with sort! u
. You can apply this to a selection of text or the entire file.
Demo Video
Timestamps
- 0:08 – Sorting a selection of text using the built in sort command
- 0:33 – Reverse sorting a list by adding a bang at the end
- 0:54 – Sorting a unique selection of text
- 1:09 – Combining reverse sort with removing duplicates
- 1:24 – Sorting an entire file with the same sort command
- 1:48 – Checking out sort’s help menu within Vim
Do you prefer Vim’s sort or shelling out to the sort command? Let me know below.