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Normal command :sort can sort lines based on column or virtual column (\%c or \%v), could the higher level logical column be used as sorting key? Using regular expression looks a little complex for this scenario (the column is around the end of the line?) and it looks similar as what the sort utility does (sork -k), but sort with this functionality is unavailable on Windows. Vim plug-in will also help.

For example, I'd like to sort the 2 lines below according to the last column separated by comma. My real scenario has much more columns and string pattern. Specify column delimiter will simplify it a lot.

xxx,yyy,zzz,0x123
zzxz,xxxx,yyyy,0x121
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Vim's sort allows you to either skip {pattern}, or only consider it (with the r flag). A regular expression for the last comma-delimited column is easy to formulate: Skip everything until and including the last comma in a line:

:sort/.*,/

For any other column, I would use the r flag, and skip N (here: 2) previous columns via \zs:

:sort/\([^,]*,\)\{2}\zs[^,]*/
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    Since the last column happens to be a hex number using the x flag might also be helpful.
    – jecxjo
    May 22, 2015 at 19:22
  • This looks great. The last column may be a special case. Any simple representation for the middle columns?
    – Thomson
    May 23, 2015 at 3:15
  • I thought you were able to come up with something for that, but here you are. Please accept my (edited) answer by clicking on the outlined checkmark next to it. Thanks!
    – Ingo Karkat
    May 23, 2015 at 9:56

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