[Info-vax] Suggestion: Adding a /SORT option to DIRECTORY and F$SEARCH ?

[alanfe...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, February 9, 2022 at 5:06:51 AM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2022-02-09 kl. 02:45, skrev alanfe... at gmail.com: 
> > On Monday, January 31, 2022 at 2:56:26 PM UTC-5, Dave Froble wrote: 
> > 
> > [...] 
> > 
> > Not intending to reply here to anyone specifically. Just a question. 
> > 
> > How do y'all handle multiple versions of files when sorting by date or size and such? 
> > 
> > Do you let them just fall where they may based on what you're sorting by? Group them together? Only process the current version of each file? 
> > 
> > Just curious.
> As Steven also implied, this question is probably to general 
> to be abel to respond to in a clear way. 
> 
> In 99.9% of the cases "sorting by version" and "sorting by date" 
> is the same thing. It is (at least here) *very* uncommon that 
> file vesions are not in timestamp order. 

Suppose you have the following:

a.a;2  3-feb-2022
a.a;1  1-feb-2022
b.b;2  4-feb-2022
b.b;1  2-feb-2022

In order by date:

b.b;2
a.a;2
b.b;1
a.a;1

The two versions of a.a are mixed with the two versions of b.b. But in a long, more complex list, you would have a hard time coming across a file somewhere in the middle and being able to easily deduce if it is the current version, or highest version, or latest version, or whatever you want to call it, or not. (To be precise, the version with the largest version number.)

When I sort by date on the mac, the Finder groups files by folder, or type, or whatever you select, and sorts by date individually for each group. That's different from the above. One could skip all but the highest-number version or one could list them strictly in order ignoring file names
> 
> For sorting (or rather searching) by date, I use the /sin and /bef 
> switches to "zoom in" to what I'm looking for. 
> 
> But yes, in most cases, it is the highest/latest version that is used.

Thank you.