Is there an efficient way to sort a selection of comma separated values in a single line?

Question

I come about this regularly and still do it manually. Consider this example - say it's inside a text.

 first 3,2,17,198,232,1,999 and some other text
 second 1,2,3,71,98,4,5 and some more text

I need these values sorted (usually for easier read, or to find duplicates).

e.g.

 first 1,2,3,17,198,232,999 and some other text
 second 1,2,3,4,5,71,98 and some more text

So far I always do it the "pedestrian" way - in my head where possible, or yank out sort there and paste back. I keep thinking there should be a more efficient way in vim. (I also tried splitting those into lines, sort -n, join, adjust commas,... - but this was even less efficient.)

Preferable without needing me to install a plugin as I sometimes work on other machines.

Answer 1

Vanilla Vim: Via Expression Register

And now a solution for vanilla vim:

1. Position cursor on list
2. ciW (removes unsorted list and puts it into register ")
3. <C-r>=join(sort([<C-r>"]), ',')<CR>

Done. I think it is actually not that bad. An even more useful variant would be

3. <C-r>=join(sort(split(expand(@"), ',')), ',')<CR>

You can re-use this expression the next time you want to sort a different list via the expression history (:h history):

4. Position cursor on the different list
5. ciW

Cycle through the history with the arrow keys to find the expression:

6. <C-r>=<Up><Up>...<CR> or
   <C-r>=join<Up><CR>

There is an additional convenience feature at the expression prompt:

If you do not enter an expression, Vim uses the previous expression (like with the "/" command)

6. <C-r>=<CR>

If you use the expression register quite often and you want to avoid losing older expressions, you should make sure that the value of 'history' is large enough: :set history?. If you have not set this value by yourself (vanilla vim), the current setting could be one of
vi-'compatible': 0, vim default: 50, defaults.vim since vim8: 200, vim-sensible: 1000 (e.g. arch)

Alternatively, define a short vimscript function to avoid typing the 'advanced' command at the expression register prompt:

function! Mysort()
   return join(sort(split(@", ',')), ',')
endfunction

3. <C-r>=Mysort()<CR> (tab-completion might help to ease the typing)

IMHO this vanilla vim solution would be almost as good as the plugin if you could dot-repeat step 2 and 3. Afaik, this is not possible. You could record steps two and three to a macro (e.g. qq) and then replay it (with @q (1st replay), @@ (2nd and more replays)).

Answer 2

Plugin sort-motion.vim

IMO the most convenient method to achieve this is to use a plugin or a self-written vim function linked to a mapping. Both need a customized vim and are obviously not available in vanilla vim.

For example, the plugin sort-motion.vim provides a flexible, very convenient solution for your question.

1. Position the cursor anywhere on the comma-separated list
2. gsiW

This is dot-repeatable:

3. Position on next list which you want to sort
4. .

IMHO minimal mental effort required which means less "mental energy" depletion. If your list exceeds one line, I would recommend to join them, sort and then re-flow the paragraph.

I am pretty confident that there is no shorter vimgolf solution for this.

Also tools from the command line do not provide this level of convenience (e.g. tr , "\n" | sort | tr "\n" , from Unix & Linux: Sort comma-separated fields on each line by numeric value).

Related command line solutions can be found here

• Stackoverflow: How to sort comma separated values in bash?
• Askubuntu: How to sort by row from terminal
• https://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/7737/sort-a-list-of-comma-separated-numbers-sort_csn

csvkit with csvsort and csvtool transpose offer no easy solution as well.