Sort | Easy Powershell 2.0 Reference

SYNOPSIS
Sorts objects by property values.

SYNTAX
Sort-Object [[-Property] <Object[]>] [-CaseSensitive] [-Culture <string>] [-Descending] [-InputObject <psobject>] [-Unique] [<CommonParameters>]

DESCRIPTION
The Sort-Object cmdlet sorts objects in ascending or descending order based on the values of properties of the object.

You can specify a single property or multiple properties (for a multi-key sort), and you can select a case-sensitive or case-insensitive sort. You can also direct Sort-Object to display only the objects with a unique value for a particular property.

PARAMETERS
-CaseSensitive [<SwitchParameter>]
Indicates that the sort should be case sensitive. By default, sorting is not case sensitive.

        Required?                    false
        Position?                    named
        Default value
        Accept pipeline input?     false
        Accept wildcard characters? false

-Culture <string>
Specifies the cultural configuration to use when sorting.

        Required?                    false
        Position?                    named
        Default value
        Accept pipeline input?     false
        Accept wildcard characters? false

-Descending [<SwitchParameter>]
Sorts the objects in descending order. The default is ascending order.

The Descending parameter applies to all properties. To sort by some properties in
ascending order and others in descending order, you must specify their property values by using a hash table. For details, see the examples.

        Required?                    false
        Position?                    named
        Default value
        Accept pipeline input?     false
        Accept wildcard characters? false

-InputObject <psobject>
Specifies the objects to be sorted.

When you use the InputObject parameter to submit a collection of items, Sort-Object receives one object that represents the collection. Because one object cannot be sorted, Sort-Object returns the entire collection unchanged.

To sort objects, pipe them to Sort-Object.

        Required?                    false
        Position?                    named
        Default value
        Accept pipeline input?     true (ByValue)
        Accept wildcard characters? false

-Property <Object[]>
Specifies the properties to use when sorting. Objects are sorted based on the values of these properties. Enter the names of the properties. Wildcards are permitted.

If you specify multiple properties, the objects are first sorted by the first property. If more than one object has the same value for the first property, those objects are sorted by the second property. This process continues until there are no more specified properties or no groups of objects.

If you do not specify properties, the cmdlet sorts based on default properties for the object type.

The value of the Property parameter can be a new calculated property. To create a calculated, property, use a hash table. Valid keys are:

        — Expression <string> or <script block>
        — Ascending <Boolean>
        — Descending <Boolean>

        Required?                    false
        Position?                    1
        Default value
        Accept pipeline input?     false
        Accept wildcard characters? true

-Unique [<SwitchParameter>]
Eliminates duplicates and returns only the unique members of the collection. You can use this parameter instead of using the Get-Unique cmdlet.

        Required?                    false
        Position?                    named
        Default value
        Accept pipeline input?     false
        Accept wildcard characters? false

    <CommonParameters>
        This cmdlet supports the common parameters: Verbose, Debug,
        ErrorAction, ErrorVariable, WarningAction, WarningVariable,
        OutBuffer and OutVariable. For more information, type,
        “Get-Help about_CommonParameters“.

INPUTS
System.Management.Automation.PSObject
You can pipe the objects to be sorted to Sort-Object.

OUTPUTS
System.Management.Automation.PSObject
Sort-Object returns the sorted objects.

NOTES

Sort-Object sorts objects based on the properties that you specify or the default sort properties for objects of that type.

If an object does not have one of the specified properties, the property value for that object is interpreted by the cmdlet as NULL and is placed at the end of the sort order.

When sorting objects, Sort-Object uses the Compare method for each property. If a property does not implement IComparable, the cmdlet converts the property value to a string and uses the Compare method for System.String.

The Sort-Object cmdlet sorts objects in ascending or descending order based on the values of properties of the object.

If you sort on a property whose value is an enumeration, Sort-Object sorts the enumeration values in numeric order; it does not sort the enumeration member names. For example, if you sort services by status, services with a status of “Stopped” appear before services with a status of “Running”, because the value of Status is a ServiceControllerStatus enumeration, in which “Stopped” has a value of 1 and “Running” has a value of 4.

————————– EXAMPLE 1 ————————–

C:\PS>Get-ChildItem | Sort-Object

    Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
    —-                ————-     —— —-
    -a—         9/13/2005 4:24 PM         0 0
    -a—         9/6/2005 4:19 PM         12 a.csv
    -a—         9/21/2005 3:49 PM        529 a.Ps
    -a—         8/22/2005 4:14 PM         22 a.pl
    -a—         9/27/2005 10:33 AM         24 a.txt
    -a—         9/15/2005 10:31 AM        398 a.vbs
    -a—         7/21/2005 12:39 PM     37066 a.xml
    -a—         8/28/2005 11:30 PM     5412 a.xslt
    -a—        10/25/2005 1:59 PM        125 AdamTravel.txt
    -a—         7/21/2005 9:49 AM         59 add2Num.Ps
    -a—         8/29/2005 5:42 PM     7111 Add-Content.xml
    -a—         9/21/2005 12:46 PM     8771 aliens.Ps
    -a—         8/10/2005 2:10 PM        798 array.xml
    -a—         8/4/2004 5:00 AM        110 AUTORUN.INF
    -a—         9/6/2005 4:20 PM        245 b.csv
    …

    Description
    ———–
    This command sorts the subdirectories and files in the current directory. Because no properties are specified, the files and directories are sorted in ascending alphabetical order by their default sort property, Name.

————————– EXAMPLE 2 ————————–

C:\PS>Get-ChildItem | Sort-Object -Property length

    Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
    —-                ————-     —— —-
    -a—         12/3/2006 5:35 PM         2 pref.txt
    -a—         9/6/2006 3:33 PM         15 count.txt
    -a—         7/26/2006 10:01 AM         30 filenoext
    -a—         8/18/2006 9:02 AM         52 temp.ps1
    -a—         8/18/2006 9:02 AM         52 temp.msh
    -a—         9/6/2006 3:33 PM         56 fivewords.txt
    -a—         7/26/2006 9:28 AM         80 date.csv
    -a—         7/29/2006 7:15 PM         84 test2.txt
    -a—         7/29/2006 7:15 PM         84 test.ps1

    Description
    ———–
    This command displays the files in the current directory in ascending order by file length.

————————– EXAMPLE 3 ————————–

C:\PS>Get-Process | Sort-Object -Property WS | Select-Object -last 5

    Handles NPM(K)    PM(K)     WS(K) VM(M) CPU(s)     Id ProcessName
    ——- ——    —–     —– —– ——     — ———–
     1105     25    44236     18932 197    93.81 2032 iexplore
     2526     66    37668     36836 221 393.27    868 svchost
        974     19    22844     45928 371    88.39 3952 WINWORD
     1371     22    42192     61872 323    75.75 1584 INFOPATH
     2145     58    93088     70680 619 396.69 3908 OUTLOOK

    Description
    ———–
    This command displays the five processes on the computer with the greatest memory use based on the size of their working sets.

The command uses the Get-Process cmdlet to get a list of processes. It uses a pipeline operator (|) to send the results to the Sort-Object cmdlet, which sorts the objects in working-set order.

Another pipeline operator sends the results to the Select-Object, which displays only the last five items in the list.

————————– EXAMPLE 4 ————————–

C:\PS>Get-History | Sort-Object -Descending

    Description
    ———–
    This command sorts HistoryInfo objects using the Id property as the default key.

————————– EXAMPLE 5 ————————–

    C:\PS>C:\PS> Get-Service | Sort-Object -Property `
    @{Expression=”Status”;Descending=$true}, `
    @{Expression=”DisplayName”;Descending=$false}

    Status Name             DisplayName
    —— —-             ———–
    Running ALG                Application Layer Gateway Service
    Running Ati HotKey Poller Ati HotKey Poller
    Running wuauserv         Automatic Updates
    Running BITS             Background Intelligent Transfer Ser…
    Running Client for NFS     Client for NFS
    …
    Stopped clr_optimizatio… .NET Runtime Optimization Service v…
    Stopped Alerter            Alerter
    Stopped AppMgmt            Application Management
    Stopped aspnet_state     ASP.NET State Service
    Stopped ATI Smart         ATI Smart
    Stopped ClipSrv            ClipBook

    Description
    ———–
    This command displays the services on the computer in descending Status order and ascending DisplayName order.

The command uses the Get-Service cmdlet to get the services on the computer. It uses a pipeline operator (|) to send services to the Sort-Object cmdlet.

To sort one property in ascending order and another property in descending order, the command uses a hash table for the value of the Property parameter. The hash table uses an Expression key to specify the property name and an Ascending or Descending key to specify the sort order.

The resulting display, which sorts the Status values in descending order, lists properties with a Status value of “Running” before those with a Status value of “Stopped”. When sorted in ascending order, “Stopped” appears before “Running”, because Status is an enumerated property in which the value of “Stopped” (1) is less than the value of “Running” (4).

————————– EXAMPLE 6 ————————–

C:\PS>Get-ChildItem *.txt | Sort-Object -Property @{Expression={$_.LastWriteTime – $_.CreationTime}; Ascending=$false} | Format-Table LastWriteTime, CreationTime

    LastWriteTime                         CreationTime
    ————-                         ————
    2/21/2006 10:22:20 AM                 10/3/2005 4:19:40 PM
    2/27/2006 8:14:24 AM                    2/23/2006 10:41:08 PM
    2/24/2006 1:26:19 PM                    2/23/2006 11:23:36 PM
    1/5/2006 12:01:35 PM                    1/5/2006 11:35:30 AM
    2/24/2006 9:25:40 AM                    2/24/2006 9:22:24 AM
    2/24/2006 9:40:01 AM                    2/24/2006 9:39:41 AM
    2/21/2006 10:21:30 AM                 2/21/2006 10:21:30 AM

    Description
    ———–
    This command sorts text files in descending order by the time span between CreationTime and LastWriteTime.

————————– EXAMPLE 7 ————————–

C:\PS>Get-Content servers.txt

    localhost
    test01
    server01
    server02
    localhost
    server01

    C:\PS> Get-Content servers.txt | Sort-Object -Unique
    localhost
    server01
    server02
    test01

    Description
    ———–
    These commands sort the names of servers in a text file. The second command uses the Sort-Object cmdlet with the Unique parameter to return a sorted list without duplicates.

RELATED LINKS
Online version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=113403
Group-Object