How to alphabetically sort lines in a html file?

linustalman · 08-29-2013, 02:07 PM

Hi.

Does anyone know how to alphabetically sort lines in a html file? I use KompoZer for editing html files. Can it be done via that app? Else another way?

Thanks.

TB0ne · 08-29-2013, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LinusStallman

Hi.
Does anyone know how to alphabetically sort lines in a html file? I use KompoZer for editing html files. Can it be done via that app? Else another way?

Well, that's a fairly open-ended question, the way it's worded. What do you mean? Sorted by first word, all words in the line? Can you provide an example of the input you have, and the output of what you want?

linustalman · 08-29-2013, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TB0ne

Well, that's a fairly open-ended question, the way it's worded. What do you mean? Sorted by first word, all words in the line? Can you provide an example of the input you have, and the output of what you want?

By first word of course.

Example (actual list is much longer and has hyper links):
simonscat.com; youtube.com/simonscat (Simon Tofield)
youtube.com/AsapSCIENCE
dorkly.com; youtube.com/dorkly

Output expected:
dorkly.com; youtube.com/dorkly
simonscat.com; youtube.com/simonscat (Simon Tofield)
youtube.com/AsapSCIENCE

sycamorex · 08-29-2013, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LinusStallman

By first word of course.

Example (actual list is much longer and has hyper links):
simonscat.com; youtube.com/simonscat (Simon Tofield)
youtube.com/AsapSCIENCE
dorkly.com; youtube.com/dorkly

Output expected:
dorkly.com; youtube.com/dorkly
simonscat.com; youtube.com/simonscat (Simon Tofield)
youtube.com/AsapSCIENCE

What does it have to do with an html file?

linustalman · 08-29-2013, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sycamorex

What does it have to do with an html file?

They are formatted inside a html file. If it was just plain lines of text, I could easily sort in Gedit or Medit.

sycamorex · 08-29-2013, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LinusStallman

They are formatted in a html file.

So can you provide a sample in the context (ideally the whole file, if possible)? Without knowing the context, it's hard to do anything.

linustalman · 08-29-2013, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sycamorex

So can you provide a sample in the context (ideally the whole file, if possible)? Without knowing the context, it's hard to do anything.

Sure. Attached is a selection from a larger list. I've put them in the wrong order to show what I mean. I renamed the file extension from .html to .txt because it would not let me attach it.

You must rename the file to 1.html to view it properly.

Firerat · 08-29-2013, 02:55 PM

I don't really know html

but why not present the list of links in a table and get that table to sort it

http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/htm...table-sortable

TB0ne · 08-29-2013, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LinusStallman

By first word of course.

There is not really an 'of course' here, since what you originally said was "alphabetically sort lines"...which could mean alphabetize the entire line or not.

Quote:

Example (actual list is much longer and has hyper links):
simonscat.com; youtube.com/simonscat (Simon Tofield)
youtube.com/AsapSCIENCE
dorkly.com; youtube.com/dorkly

Output expected:
dorkly.com; youtube.com/dorkly
simonscat.com; youtube.com/simonscat (Simon Tofield)
youtube.com/AsapSCIENCE

Have you looked at the sort command??? You can tell it which word(s) to sort on, and how to order the list. I'd strip out the html tags first with sed, and get everything on it's own line. After that, just run it through sort.

astrogeek · 08-29-2013, 03:42 PM

You should rethink your question: How to alphabetically sort hyperlinks in an html file?

The first problem, in the example file you posted, the first link to youtube.com/AsapSCIENCE is not actually on a separate line and if sorted by lines it would potentially break the structure of the document by moving the entire <html><head>... section away from the start of the document.

Next it is apparent from your other examples that what you really want to sort by is either the portion of the link after the host name, or maybe the linked text itself.

Finally, although your selected examples only include links of the form youtube.com/sometext, in order to work you would surely need to handle urls with query strings like somehost.com/sometext?abc=xyz, and cases where the linked text does not appear in the link target.

Also worth mentioning, in your 1.txt file the links are not contiguous. There are other html elements between some of them such as the styled <br> tag (which is not valid anyway).

My point is not to criticize your html, but to point out that sorting it by line to impose order on the links is not the right problem and probably hopeless anyway.

I would suggest that you first impose a sound structure on the html.

Then you need to decide what field you actually want to sort by, and what cases need to be handled.

My guess is that you really want to sort by linked text, and this might very well be different from the target url. But sorting by linked text inside other html tags and styles and various other attributes is a losing proposition.

So you would be much better served to either script a way of generating the links from sorted text, or some means of managing it via a text editor before inserting it into the html document.

If you must sort the html itself, then follow firerat's advice to organize the links into a table (i.e., impose a structure) then use the HTML/CSS facilities for ordering table rows.

schneidz · 08-29-2013, 04:30 PM

Code:

[schneidz@hyper ~]$ sort 1.txt 





  
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/AvaazOrg">youtube.com/AvaazOrg</a><br>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/betdaq"></a><a href="http://youtube.com/ehow">youtube.com/ehow</a><a href="http://youtube.com/user/engineerguyvideo"></a><br>
<a href="http://youtube.com/howcast">youtube.com/howcast</a><br>
</body></html>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html><head><meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type"><title>1</title></head><body><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/AsapSCIENCE">youtube.com/AsapSCIENCE</a><br style="font-family: Arial; background-color: white;">
Perspective - The Future of Earth <a href="http://i.imgur.com/bwXbe.gif">imgur.com/bwXbe.gif</a><br>

not sure why one would want mal-formed sorted html code.

linustalman · 08-30-2013, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TB0ne

There is not really an 'of course' here, since what you originally said was "alphabetically sort lines"...which could mean alphabetize the entire line or not.

Hi TB0ne.

If you go to Gedit or Pluma and select "Sort", it sorts the lines the way people generally expect. That's why I did not mention any other type of sorting. No offence intended.

I'd rather opt for a GUI method. I copied all into LibreOffice Calc and then sorted and copied back into Kompozer. The only hitch is that the gaps are too big between entries that have 2 or more lines. Is there a way to change this in table properties perhaps?

Again like last time, just rename attached file to .html

schneidz · 08-30-2013, 09:00 AM

is 1.txt the before picture and 2.txt the after picture (i am not sure how the 2 co-relate).

can you please illustrate what you mean by sort... i dont think anyone knows what you are trying to do ?

linustalman · 08-30-2013, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schneidz

is 1.txt the before picture and 2.txt the after picture (i am not sure how the 2 co-relate).

can you please illustrate what you mean by sort... i dont think anyone knows what you are trying to do ?

Goto Gedit and select "Sort", that's what I mean.

2.txt (.html) was sorted in Calc and then copied back into Kompozer. 1.txt can be disregarded now.

Firerat · 08-30-2013, 01:40 PM

http://tablesorter.com/docs/#Download

I don't know html, but I cobbled this together in vim

example
Sort.html
unzip the jquery into same dir as your sort.html

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
  <head>
    <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type">
      <title>Sortable list</title>
      <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-latest.js"></script> 
      <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.tablesorter.js"></script>
      <script type="text/javascript">$(function(){$("#somelist").tablesorter()})</script>
  </head>
  <style>
    #somelist th:hover { cursor: pointer; cursor: hand; background-color: #EEE; }
  </style>
  <body>
    <table id="somelist" class="tablesorter" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1">
      <thead><tr><th>Link</th></tr></thead>
      <tbody>
        <tr><td><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/AsapSCIENCE">youtube.com/AsapSCIENCE</a></td></tr>
        <tr><td><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/betdaq">youtube.com/user/betdaq</a></td></tr>
        <tr><td><a href="http://youtube.com/ehow">youtube.com/ehow</a></td></tr>
        <tr><td><a href="http://youtube.com/user/engineerguyvideo">engineerguyvideo</a></td></tr>
        <tr><td><a href="http://i.imgur.com/bwXbe.gif">imgur.com/bwXbe.gif</a></td></tr>
        <tr><td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/AvaazOrg">youtube.com/AvaazOrg</a></td></tr>
        <tr><td><a href="http://youtube.com/howcast">youtube.com/howcast</a></td></tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>
  </body>
</html>

load that file in browser, click on the header (Link)