Two GNU Coreutils programs use version sort: ls and sort.
To list files in version sort order, use ls
with the -v or --sort=version option:
default sort: version sort: $ ls -1 $ ls -1 -v a1 a1 a100 a1.4 a1.13 a1.13 a1.4 a1.40 a1.40 a2 a2 a100
To sort text files in version sort order, use sort with
the -V or --version-sort option:
$ cat input b3 b11 b1 b20 lexicographic order: version sort order: $ sort input $ sort -V input b1 b1 b11 b3 b20 b11 b3 b20
To sort a specific field in a file, use -k/--key with ‘V’ type sorting, which is often combined with ‘b’ to ignore leading blanks in the field:
$ cat input2 100 b3 apples 2000 b11 oranges 3000 b1 potatoes 4000 b20 bananas $ sort -k 2bV,2 input2 3000 b1 potatoes 100 b3 apples 2000 b11 oranges 4000 b20 bananas