rtsort

A real-time sort with a live terminal preview.

rtsort is a streaming alternative to the standard sort command. It displays a continuously updated preview of your sorted data as it arrives, then seamlessly writes the final output to stdout.

Features

• Live terminal display updates as each line arrives
• Alphabetical, numeric, and human-readable numeric sort modes
• Reverse ordering
• Limit output to the top N results

Install

Install with Cargo from crates.io

cargo install rtsort

Download a release binary

Download the archive for your platform from the GitHub Releases page, extract it, and place the rtsort binary somewhere on your PATH.

Install with Cargo from the repository

cargo install --git https://github.com/pinelibg/rtsort.git

If your GitHub access uses SSH:

cargo install --git ssh://git@github.com/pinelibg/rtsort.git

Build from a local clone

git clone https://github.com/pinelibg/rtsort.git
cd rtsort
cargo install --path .

Usage

rtsort [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -n, --numeric-sort          Compare by string numerical value
  -h, --human-numeric-sort    Compare by human-readable numeric values (e.g. 2K, 1G)
  -r, --reverse               Reverse the sort order
  -t, --top <N>               Output only the first N lines of the sorted result
      --help                  Print help

Examples

# Alphabetical sort (default)
printf 'pear\napple\nbanana\n' | rtsort

# Numeric sort
printf '10\n2\n30\n' | rtsort -n

# Human-readable numeric sort
printf '1K\n50\n2M\n' | rtsort -h

# Reverse sort
printf 'a\nc\nb\n' | rtsort -r

# Show only the top 3 results
printf '5\n1\n4\n2\n3\n' | rtsort -n --top 3

# Sort directories by size (human-readable)
du -sh */ | rtsort -h

# Find the 5 largest directories
du -sh */ | rtsort -hr --top 5

Development

cargo build
cargo test
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo fmt --check

To try without installing:

printf 'pear\napple\nbanana\n' | cargo run
printf '10\n2\n30\n' | cargo run -- -n