coopey247
26th February 2003 17:25 UTC

Sort a CSV file
I'm trying to automate the sorting of a comma deliminated Excel file by a particular column. Any ideas?

kichik
26th February 2003 22:34 UTC

I don't think it's possible using NSIS scripting (without System.dll), and if it is the script would be huge. Therefore I suggest gawk. It's a Win32 port of an Linux application. It's very powerful and with the right parameters can do what you've asked.

This example script sorts a file (and with the right tweaking I am sure it will be able to sort CSVs too):

{ line[NR] = $0 "" }  # make sure of comparison type
                # in case some lines look numeric

END {  isort(line, NR)
  for(i = 1 ; i <= NR ; i++) print line[i]
}

#insertion sort of A[1..n]
function isort( A, n,    i, j, hold)
{
  for( i = 2 ; i <= n ; i++)
  {
    hold = A[j = i]
    while ( A[j-1] > hold )
    { j-- ; A[j+1] = A[j] }
    A[j] = hold
  }
  # sentinel A[0] = "" will be created if needed
}