Sort-Object
Applies To: Windows PowerShell 2.0
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
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
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
Eliminates duplicates and returns only the unique members of the collection. You can use this parameter instead of using the Get-Unique cmdlet.
This parameter is case-insensitive. As a result, strings that differ only in character casing are considered to be the same (not unique).
Required? |
false |
Position? |
named |
Default Value |
|
Accept Pipeline Input? |
false |
Accept Wildcard Characters? |
false |
<CommonParameters>
This cmdlet supports the common parameters: -Debug, -ErrorAction, -ErrorVariable, -OutBuffer, -OutVariable, -Verbose, -WarningAction, and -WarningVariable. For more information, see about_CommonParameters.
Inputs and Outputs
The input type is the type of the objects that you can pipe to the cmdlet. The return type is the type of the objects that the cmdlet returns.
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
Id CommandLine
-- -----------
51 get-history | sort -descending
50 get-history | sort -descending
49 get-history | sort -descending
48 get-history | sort -descending
47 get-history | sort -descending
46 get-history | sort -descending
45 get-history | sort -descending
44 cd $pshome
43 get-childitem | sort-object
42 gci *.txt
Description
-----------
This command sorts HistoryInfo objects using the Id property as the default key.
Example 5
C:\PS>C:\PS> get-service | sort-object -property `
@{Expression="Status";Descending=$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.