Re: Numerically sorted arguments (in shell)

On 16.06.2024 21:52, Helmut Waitzmann wrote:

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>:

How would the main function look like that I could embed in my call to
make a numerically sorted list. Say, something like, for example,
>
  viewer $( p_sort P*.HTM )
>
where p_sort would be the Python code. - Note: this is no appropriate
solution since it would anyway not work correctly for file names with
embedded blanks and newlines. I just want to get a closer
understanding how you think this would be usable in shell (or from
shell). Thanks.

 
If ‘p_sort’ is designed to output the sorted file names separated by an
ASCII NUL character rather than a newline then, using the GNU version of
‘xargs’, one can feed that output into ‘xargs’:
 
  {
    p_sort P*.HTM 3<&- |
    xargs --null --no-run-if-empty -- sh -c \
    'exec 0<&3 3<&- "$@"' sh \
    viewer
  } 3<&0
 
 
This will avoid the problems with funny characters (including blanks and
linefeeds) in filenames processed by the shell.

I'm sure it does. You've actually shown a way to circumvent all the
issues with $( ... ) . So I'd probably write a wrapper to make that
code usable in a simpler way. Thanks.

And for the 'p_sort' function I'll resort to some standard tools...

Janis