Cannot sort my bash functions correctly

Question

I'm trying to sort my bash functions inside my .bash_functions file.

Here is what I type :

:g/^function /,/^}$/ s/\n/@@@
:sort /^function /
:%s/@@@/\r/g

EDIT0 : Here is some of the input :

function listVideosFromRSSPodCastPlayList {
    test $# = 1 && {
        local rssURL="$1"
        local wget="$(which wget2 2>/dev/null || which wget)"
#       echo $(youtube-dl -g "$rssURL")
        echo $(curl -s "$rssURL" | egrep -o "https?:[^ <>]*(mp4|webm)" | grep -v .google.com/ | uniq)
    }
}
function getVideosFromRSSPodCastPlayList {
    test $# = 1 && {
        local rssURL="$1"
        local wget="$(which wget2 2>/dev/null || which wget)"
#       $wget $(youtube-dl -g "$rssURL")
        $wget $(curl -s "$rssURL" | egrep -o "https?:[^ <>]*(mp4|webm)" | grep -v .google.com/ | uniq)
    }
}
function jpgRotate {
    test $# = 0 && {
        echo "=> Usage: $FUNCNAME angle file1 file2 file3 ..." >&2
        return 1
    }

    local angle=$1
    shift
    for pic
    do
        extension="${pic/*./}"
        newFile="${pic/.$extension/_ROTATED.$extension}"
        echo "=> Losslessly rotating $pic by $angle degrees into $newFile ..." >&2
        jpegtran -perfect -rotate $angle "$pic" > "$newFile"
        touch -r "$pic" "$newFile"
    done
}

Something is wrong with my first command because the functions' code should be converted into one liners.

However, here is a little piece of the output I get instead :

function listVideosFromRSSPodCastPlayList {@@@  test $# = 1 && {@@@     local rssURL="$1"@@@        local wget="$(which wget2 2>/dev/null || which wget)"@@@#       echo $(youtube-dl -g "$rssURL")@@@      echo $(curl -s "$rssURL" | egrep -o "https?:[^ <>]*(mp4|webm)" | grep -v .google.com/ | uniq)@@@    }@@@}@@@function getVideosFromRSSPodCastPlayList {
    test $# = 1 && {
        local rssURL="$1"
        local wget="$(which wget2 2>/dev/null || which wget)"
#       $wget $(youtube-dl -g "$rssURL")
        $wget $(curl -s "$rssURL" | egrep -o "https?:[^ <>]*(mp4|webm)" | grep -v .google.com/ | uniq)
    }
}
function jpgRotate {@@@ test $# = 0 && {@@@     echo "=> Usage: $FUNCNAME angle file1 file2 file3 ..." >&2@@@       return 1@@@ }@@@@@@ local angle=$1@@@   shift@@@    for pic@@@  do@@@       extension="${pic/*./}"@@@       newFile="${pic/.$extension/_ROTATED.$extension}"@@@     echo "=> Losslessly rotating $pic by $angle degrees into $newFile ..." >&2@@@       jpegtran -perfect -rotate $angle "$pic" > "$newFile"@@@     touch -r "$pic" "$newFile"@@@   done@@@}@@@function locateBin {
    local regExp="$1"
    shift
    locate "bin/.*$regExp" "$@"
}
...

Can you help me ?

Answer 1

Try to add the negative offset -1 to the second line specifier in the range passed to the first substitution command:

                   v
:g/^function /,/^}/- s/\n/@@@
:sort /^function /
:%s/@@@/\r/g

Otherwise, the newline at the end of your first function is replaced with @@@, which wrongly merges the first line of the second function with the last line of the first one.

---

the last substition does not work correctly for input lines already ending with @ (for example : echo $@)

In your substitution commands, you need to use a text which doesn't appear in your file. A good candidate for this kind of transformation is a non-printing character such as a control character like a literal C-a whose caret notation is ^A. Try this instead:

:exe "g/^function /,/^}/- s/\\n/\<c-a>"
:sort /^function /
:exe "%s/\<c-a>/\\r/g"

why bother with the "exe" command, extra quotes and extra backslashes which makes this harder to read ?

The original command that I posted worked on your input file. Now, you say that it doesn't work on another input file which contains echo $@, so I use a non-printing character for the replacement.

It works without the exe and the extra backslashes, but in this case your replacement is just the text <c-a>. And there's no guarantee it will work on some other input file you encounter in the future. OTOH, ^A is unlikely to appear in your bash script files ¹, so there should be no issue.

If you agree, then you need exe, the quotes, and the extra backslashes to make Vim translate \<c-a> into ^A (see :h expr-quote).

You can see the result of the translation by replacing exe with echo:

:echo "g/^function /,/^}/- s/\\n/\<c-a>"
g/^function /,/^}/- s/\n/^A
                         ^^

:echo "%s/\<c-a>/\\r/g"
%s/^A/\r/g
   ^^

Edit: If you don't like the :exe and the extra backslashes, to express ^A you can write \%x01 in the pattern and \="\<c-a>" in the replacement of the substitutions:

:g/^function /,/^}/- s/\n/\="\<c-a>"/
:sort /^function /
:%s/\%x01/\r/g

---

¹ If you need to write ^A in one of your bash script, try $'\ca'.

$ printf '%s' $'\ca' | od -tc
0000000 001
0000001

The syntax is documented in the QUOTING section from $ man bash:

Words of the form $'string' are treated specially. The word expands to string, with backslash-escaped characters replaced as specified by the ANSI C standard. Backslash escape sequences, if present, are decoded as follows:

...

\cx a control-x character