🔠 sort.nvim

GitHub release License

Sort is a Neovim plugin for intelligent line and delimiter sorting.

• Delimiter-aware sorting: Automatically detects and sorts by delimiters like commas, pipes, colons, and more.
• Natural sorting support: Handles strings with numbers naturally (e.g., "item1", "item2", "item10").
• Vim-compatible: Mirrors Neovim's built-in :sort command functionality where applicable.
• Motion-based operations: Provides text objects and motions for efficient sorting workflows.

{
 'sQVe/sort.nvim',
 config = function()
 require('sort').setup({
 -- Optional configuration overrides.
 })
 end,
}

Sort comes with the following defaults:

{
 -- Delimiter priority order.
 delimiters = {
 ',',
 '|',
 ';',
 ':',
 's', -- Space.
 't' -- Tab.
 },
 -- Natural sorting (default: true).
 natural_sort = true,
 -- Case-insensitive sorting (default: false).
 ignore_case = false,
 -- Remove duplicate items when sorting (default: false).
 unique = false,
 -- Whitespace alignment threshold.
 whitespace = {
 alignment_threshold = 3,
 },
 -- Default keymappings (set to false to disable).
 mappings = {
 operator = 'go',
 textobject = {
 inner = 'io',
 around = 'ao',
 },
 motion = {
 next_delimiter = ']o',
 prev_delimiter = '[o',
 },
 },
}

The :Sort command adapts its behavior based on your selection:

When selecting multiple lines, all arguments are passed to Neovim's built-in :sort command:

:[range]Sort[!] [flags]

See :help :sort for complete documentation of flags and options.

When selecting within a single line, the plugin performs delimiter-based sorting:

:[range]Sort[!] [delimiter][flags]

Available flags:

• ! - Reverse the sort order
• [delimiter] - Manually specify delimiter (any punctuation, s for space, t for tab)
• b - Sort by binary numbers
• i - Ignore case
• n - Sort by decimal numbers
• o - Sort by octal numbers
• u - Keep only unique items
• x - Sort by hexadecimal numbers
• z - Natural sorting (handles numbers in strings properly)

Limitations: Delimiter splitting is literal. Quoted strings ("a,b",c) and bracket-protected regions ((a,b),c) are not honored — the delimiter always splits, even inside a quoted value. If your data requires quote-aware splitting, preprocess it with a dedicated CSV tool before sorting.

Sort provides Vim-style operators and text objects for efficient sorting:

All sorting operations support Vim's dot-repeat (.) functionality, allowing you to easily repeat the last sort operation.

gow " Word
go( " Parentheses
go3j " 3 lines
goio " Inner object
goao " Around object
gop " Paragraph
gogo " Current line

To disable natural sorting for motions:

require('sort').setup({
 natural_sort = false,
})

By default, Sort performs case-sensitive sorting for all operations. You can configure it to be case-insensitive by default:

require('sort').setup({
 ignore_case = true,
})

Note: The :Sort i command still works independently of this setting for explicit case-insensitive sorting.

To remove duplicates when sorting:

require('sort').setup({
 unique = true,
})

You can customize the default mappings:

require('sort').setup({
 mappings = {
 operator = 'gs',
 textobject = {
 inner = 'ii',
 around = 'ai',
 },
 motion = {
 next_delimiter = ']d',
 prev_delimiter = '[d',
 },
 },
})

To disable mappings entirely:

require('sort').setup({
 mappings = {
 operator = false,
 textobject = false,
 motion = false,
 },
})

Natural sorting handles numbers within text intelligently - comparing them numerically rather than alphabetically:

" Regular sorting:
item1, item10, item2 → item1, item10, item2
" Natural sorting (z flag):
item1, item10, item2 → item1, item2, item10

This is especially useful for:

• Version numbers: v1.9.0, v1.10.0, v2.0.0 sorts correctly
• File names: file1.txt, file2.txt, file10.txt sorts in logical order
• IDs and references: #1, #2, #10, #100 maintains numeric order

All contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and guidelines.