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

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Den 2022-01-26 kl. 13:49, skrev 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.
> 

Might need a new message:

%DIRECT-E-TOLARGETOSORT, directory to large for SORT qualifier

Since the file names can not be read in any other sorting order
then alphabetical, they need to be read into memory and sorted.