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

[John Wallace]

On Tuesday, 25 January 2022 at 19:09:32 UTC, Simon Clubley wrote:
> It would be nice to be able to see the output from a DIRECTORY command 
> optionally sorted by one of largest size, smallest size, oldest date, 
> newest date, etc. 
> 
> Likewise, it would be nice to be able to optionally specify the sort 
> order in which filenames are returned by f$search(). 
> 
> Does anyone agree ? 
> 
> Simon. 
> 
> -- 
> Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP 
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

(ignoring f$search for now)

You mean like DIR on RT11 (single user PDP11 OS) has had since the 1990s or thereabouts?

.DIR /SORT:[sort_option] 

Sort_options include DATE and SIZE.

You can also include a /REVERSE qualifier to reverse the default sort order.

See e.g. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/rt11/v5.6_Aug91/AA-PDU0A-TC_RT-11_Commands_Manual_Aug91.pdf

Somebody must have thought it was worth doing.