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, human-readable numeric, and version number sort modes
• Case-insensitive sorting
• Reverse ordering
• Limit output to the top or bottom N results
• Deduplicate lines that compare equal under the active sort mode (like sort -u)
• --no-preview mode for scripting without the live terminal display
• Configurable preview update rate via --fps
• Sort by a specific field with a configurable field delimiter

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)
  -f, --ignore-case           Fold lower case to upper case characters for comparison
  -V, --version-sort          Sort by version numbers (e.g. 1.9 < 1.10)
  -r, --reverse               Reverse the sort order
  -u, --unique                Remove lines that compare equal under the active sort mode
      --top <N>               Output only the first N lines of the sorted result
      --bottom <N>            Output only the last N lines of the sorted result
      --no-preview            Suppress the live terminal preview (no alternate screen)
      --fps <N>               Preview update rate in frames per second (default: 30; 0 = every line)
  -k, --key <N>               Sort by field N (1-indexed)
  -t, --field-separator <CHAR> Field delimiter character (used with -k; default: whitespace)
      --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

# Version sort (1.9 < 1.10 < 2.0)
printf 'v1.10\nv1.9\nv2.0\nv1.0\n' | rtsort -V

# Case-insensitive sort
printf 'banana\nApple\ncherry\n' | rtsort -f

# 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

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

# Remove duplicate lines
printf 'b\na\nb\na\n' | rtsort -u

# Sort by the second whitespace-delimited field
printf 'foo 3\nbar 1\nbaz 2\n' | rtsort -k 2

# Sort by the second colon-delimited field
printf 'foo:3\nbar:1\nbaz:2\n' | rtsort -k 2 -t ':'

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

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

# Sort without live terminal preview (useful in scripts)
printf 'pear\napple\nbanana\n' | rtsort --no-preview

# Limit preview to 10 fps (useful on slow terminals)
printf 'pear\napple\nbanana\n' | rtsort --fps 10

# Slow preview for very long-running streams
printf 'pear\napple\nbanana\n' | rtsort --fps 0.5

# Update preview on every line (no rate limiting)
printf 'pear\napple\nbanana\n' | rtsort --fps 0

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