Re: [libreoffice-users] OT: Windows, sort text file, can I use LibO maybe?

Hi Paul,

Actually, I *think* that will work perfectly, thanks!

If anyone cares, what this if for is...

I use a really cool little free PortableApp called 'RemoteControl' 
(based on the old 'GenControl' app), that allows me to connect to and 
remotely control any PC in our network (only works in a domain 
environment), quickly and easily, no passwords needed (as long as I'm 
logged on with a Domain Admin account).

It makes providing remote support for our users sooooooo much easier 
than Remote Support sessions.

But, the biggest problem is it doesn't provide any way to sort the list 
oif computers - so it always takes me anywhere from 5 or 10 seconds to 
30+ seconds to find someone in the list.

The app stores the list of computers in a little txt file (it actually 
has a .tmp extension), and that is the file I want to sort.

I figured out how to get it to sort automatically every time I launch 
the App (wrote a little batch file to do the sort, then launch the App), 
but the Windows sort command is brain-dead and will only sort on the 
first column, which for this App, is the workstation name, rather than 
the Description (where I put the Users name).

I'll let you know if this works (fingers crossed)...

Thanks again Paul!

Charles

On 3/17/2014 2:57 PM, Paul <paulsteyn1@afrihost.co.za> wrote:
> Hi Charles,
>
> There are a few ways of doing this that I can think of. First, you
> could use the linux sort utility, that does let one sort by columns, so
> the second column in your case. There are two different ports of that to
> win32 here:
>
> http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/coreutils.htm
> http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
>
> Or you can get it using cygwin:
>
> http://www.cygwin.com/
>
> Both those options would be from the command line. Other programs, like
> vim, can also sort for you:
>
> http://www.vim.org/download.php
>
> It can be done in Calc, too, but I'm not sure about doing it from the
> command line.
>
> In Calc, if you open the file, you should get the text import dialog,
> and you should be able to specify a space as the field separator. Then,
> simply select all the data, from first row to last and first column to
> last, and go to "Data | Sort". In the sort dialog, choose the second
> column as the first sort key. If the second column on its own is likely
> to have duplicates, set the third column as the second sort key. Repeat
> for as many columns as necessary to ensure that you will have unique
> sort keys.
>
> As I said, it can be done in Calc, but I don't see how that could be
> done from the command line. If you really want the command line, my
> advice would be to install one of the win32 ports of unix tools, and
> use that sort command.
>
> Hope this helps
>
> Paul
>
>
>
> On Mon, 17 Mar 2014 14:32:15 -0400
> Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@libertytrek.org> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm working on a little problem that I'd really like to resolve. It
> > doesn't really have anything to do with Libreoffice, other than I
> > thought I might be able to use Calc to do the sort...
> >
> > I have a text file. Each line is one record.
> >
> > I can use the raw windows Sort command to sort the file, and that
> > works fine, but I need to sort it based on the second column, not the
> > first, and the windows sort command doesn't allow this.
> >
> > The columns are separated by a space, but to complicate matters, the
> > second column can contain multiple space separated words.
> >
> > All I need to do is sort the file based on the text found AFTER the
> > first space on each line (ie, the second column).
> >
> > Is it maybe possible to do this somehow with Calc on the command line?
> >
> > Or, does anyone have any other ideas?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Charles


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