many thanks

Select Sort… from the Columns++ menu and let it enclose the entire document in a rectangular selection (or make your own selection first).

Use Whole lines, Ascending or Descending as desired, and Width. You can then sort on Entire column, unless you wish to use one of the other options.

The sort is based on the on-screen width of text in the current font. Columns++ is meant to deal with data in columns using tabs, including elastic tabstops and proportionally-spaced fonts; I found that using the width, rather than a count of characters, was the most consistent way to deal with all the variations in a way that makes intuitive sense for users. For files using monospaced fonts and no tabs, the results are the same as counting characters.

This converts

abcdefg
ab
abcdefgh
a
abcdefghi
abcde
abcd
abc

into

a
ab
abc
abcd
abcde
abcdefg
abcdefgh
abcdefghi

I received a feature request related to this post. It doesn’t quite feel like a good fit for Columns++ to me, but I think your MultiReplace plugin can assist in making this possible in a reasonable number of steps.

I believe multi-replace can be set up to find ^.*$ and replace with set(string.len(MATCH).." "..MATCH).

Then Edit | Line operations | Sort Lines As Integers Ascending will sort the lines in order by length, and then ^\d+\x20 replaced with nothing would remove the lengths.

Thanks to, @mkupper, which recently posted a comment and exactly, three years later, I going to simplify the way to get a sort by length of lines and, secondly, by line contents, too !

Like in my previous post, I will use this list of rivers, below :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_by_length

After suppression of some doublons, we get an INPUT text of 238 river’s names :

Nile
White Nile
Kagera
Nyabarongo
Mwogo
Rukarara
Amazon
Ucayali
Tambo
Ene
Mantaro
Yangtze
Mississippi
Missouri
Jefferson
Beaverhead
Red Rock
Hell Roaring
Yenisei
Angara
Selenge
Ider
Yellow River
Ob
Irtysh
Río de la Plata
Paraná
Congo
Chambeshi
Amur
Argun
Kherlen
Lena
Mekong
Mackenzie
Slave
Peace
Finlay
Niger
Brahmaputra
Tsangpo
Murray
Darling
Culgoa
Balonne
Condamine
Tocantins
Araguaia
Volga
Indus
Sênggê Zangbo
Shatt al-Arab
Euphrates
Murat
Madeira
Mamoré
Caine
Rocha
Purús
Yukon
São Francisco
Syr Darya
Naryn
Salween
Saint Lawrence
Niagara
Detroit
Saint Clair
Saint Marys
Saint Louis
North
Nizhnyaya Tunguska
Danube
Breg
Zambezi
Vilyuy
Ganges
Hooghly
Padma
Amu Darya
Panj
Japurá
Nelson
Saskatchewan
Paraguay
Kolyma
Pilcomayo
Biya
Katun
Ishim
Juruá
Ural
Arkansas
Colorado
Olenyok
Dnieper
Aldan
Ubangi
Uele
Negro
Columbia
Zhujiang
Red
Ayeyarwady
Kasai
Ohio
Allegheny
Orinoco
Tarim
Xingu
Orange
Salado
Vitim
Tigris
Songhua
Tapajós
Don
Podkamennaya Tunguska
Pechora
Kama
Limpopo
Chulym
Guaporé
Indigirka
Snake
Senegal
Uruguay
Blue Nile
Churchill
Khatanga
Okavango
Volta
Beni
Platte
Tobol
Alazeya
Jubba
Shebelle
Içá
Magdalena
Han
Kura
Oka
Guaviare
Pecos
Murrumbidgee
Godavari
Río Grande
Belaya
Cooper
Barcoo
Marañón
Dniester
Benue
Ili
Warburton
Georgina
Sutlej
Yamuna
Vyatka
Fraser
Brazos
Liao
Lachlan
Yalong
Iguaçu
Olyokma
Northern Dvina
Sukhona
Krishna
Iriri
Narmada
Lomami
Ottawa
Lerma
Grande de Santiago
Elbe
Vltava
Zeya
Juruena
Rhine
Athabasca
Canadian
North Saskatchewan
Vistula
Bug
Vaal
Shire
Ogooué
Nen
Kızılırmak
Markha
Green
Milk
Chindwin
Sankuru
Wu
James
Kapuas
Desna
Helmand
Madre de Dios
Tietê
Vychegda
Sepik
Cimarron
Anadyr
Paraíba do Sul
Jialing
Liard
Cumberland
White
Huallaga
Kwango
Draa
Gambia
Tyung
Chenab
Yellowstone
Ghaghara
Huai
Aras
Chu
Seversky Donets
Bermejo
Fly
Kuskokwim
Tennessee
Oder
Warta
Aruwimi
Daugava
Gila
Loire
Essequibo
Khoper
Tagus
Flinders

• At end of the first line, we add some space chars till column 100

• Then, with a zero-length selection, at column 100, we insert a exclamation mark ( ! ) at end of all lines of the list :

=> We get this temporary text ( I just listed the first lines and the last lines ) :

Nile                                                                                               !
White Nile                                                                                         !
Kagera                                                                                             !
Nyabarongo                                                                                         !
Mwogo                                                                                              !
Rukarara                                                                                           !
Amazon                                                                                             !
Ucayali                                                                                            !
Tambo                                                                                              !
Ene                                                                                                !
Mantaro                                                                                            !
Yangtze                                                                                            !
Mississippi                                                                                        !
Missouri                                                                                           !
......                                                                                             !
......                                                                                             !
......                                                                                             !
......                                                                                             !
Seversky Donets                                                                                    !
Bermejo                                                                                            !
Fly                                                                                                !
Kuskokwim                                                                                          !
Tennessee                                                                                          !
Oder                                                                                               !
Warta                                                                                              !
Aruwimi                                                                                            !
Daugava                                                                                            !
Gila                                                                                               !
Loire                                                                                              !
Essequibo                                                                                          !
Khoper                                                                                             !
Tagus                                                                                              !
Flinders                                                                                           !

• Now, we perform this regex S/R :

  • SEARCH ^([\w -]+?)(\x20+)(?=!)

  • REPLACE \2\1

=> Again, we get this temporary text ( I just listed the first lines and the last lines ) :

                                                                                               Nile!
                                                                                         White Nile!
                                                                                             Kagera!
                                                                                         Nyabarongo!
                                                                                              Mwogo!
                                                                                           Rukarara!
                                                                                             Amazon!
                                                                                            Ucayali!
                                                                                              Tambo!
                                                                                                Ene!
                                                                                            Mantaro!
                                                                                            Yangtze!
                                                                                        Mississippi!
                                                                                           Missouri!
                                                                                             ......!
                                                                                             ......!
                                                                                             ......!
                                                                                             ......!
                                                                                    Seversky Donets!
                                                                                            Bermejo!
                                                                                                Fly!
                                                                                          Kuskokwim!
                                                                                          Tennessee!
                                                                                               Oder!
                                                                                              Warta!
                                                                                            Aruwimi!
                                                                                            Daugava!
                                                                                               Gila!
                                                                                              Loire!
                                                                                          Essequibo!
                                                                                             Khoper!
                                                                                              Tagus!
                                                                                           Flinders!

• Then, we run the Edit > Line Operations > Sort Lines Lexicographically Ascending option

==> Here is our sorted text ( I just listed the first lines and the last lines ) :

                                                                                                 Ob!
                                                                                                 Wu!
                                                                                                Bug!
                                                                                                Chu!
                                                                                                Don!
                                                                                                Ene!
                                                                                                Fly!
                                                                                                Han!
                                                                                                Ili!
                                                                                                Içá!
                                                                                                Nen!
                                                                                                Oka!
                                                                                                Red!
                                                                                               Amur!
                                                                                               Aras!
                                                                                             ......!
                                                                                             ......!
                                                                                             ......!
                                                                                             ......!
                                                                                       Saskatchewan!
                                                                                       Yellow River!
                                                                                      Madre de Dios!
                                                                                      Shatt al-Arab!
                                                                                      São Francisco!
                                                                                      Sênggê Zangbo!
                                                                                     Northern Dvina!
                                                                                     Paraíba do Sul!
                                                                                     Saint Lawrence!
                                                                                    Río de la Plata!
                                                                                    Seversky Donets!
                                                                                 Grande de Santiago!
                                                                                 Nizhnyaya Tunguska!
                                                                                 North Saskatchewan!
                                                                              Podkamennaya Tunguska!

• Finally, let’s run this last regex S/R

  • SEARCH ^\x20+|!$

  • REPLACE Leave EMPTY

=> It remains our expected OUTPUT text, sorted by line length :

Ob
Wu
Bug
Chu
Don
Ene
Fly
Han
Ili
Içá
Nen
Oka
Red
Amur
Aras
Beni
Biya
Breg
Draa
Elbe
Gila
Huai
Ider
Kama
Kura
Lena
Liao
Milk
Nile
Oder
Ohio
Panj
Uele
Ural
Vaal
Zeya
Aldan
Argun
Benue
Caine
Congo
Desna
Green
Indus
Iriri
Ishim
James
Jubba
Juruá
Kasai
Katun
Lerma
Liard
Loire
Murat
Mwogo
Naryn
Negro
Niger
North
Padma
Peace
Pecos
Purús
Rhine
Rocha
Sepik
Shire
Slave
Snake
Tagus
Tambo
Tarim
Tietê
Tobol
Tyung
Vitim
Volga
Volta
Warta
White
Xingu
Yukon
Amazon
Anadyr
Angara
Barcoo
Belaya
Brazos
Chenab
Chulym
Cooper
Culgoa
Danube
Finlay
Fraser
Gambia
Ganges
Iguaçu
Irtysh
Japurá
Kagera
Kapuas
Khoper
Kolyma
Kwango
Lomami
Mamoré
Markha
Mekong
Murray
Nelson
Ogooué
Orange
Ottawa
Paraná
Platte
Salado
Sutlej
Tigris
Ubangi
Vilyuy
Vltava
Vyatka
Yalong
Yamuna
Alazeya
Aruwimi
Balonne
Bermejo
Darling
Daugava
Detroit
Dnieper
Guaporé
Helmand
Hooghly
Jialing
Juruena
Kherlen
Krishna
Lachlan
Limpopo
Madeira
Mantaro
Marañón
Narmada
Niagara
Olenyok
Olyokma
Orinoco
Pechora
Salween
Sankuru
Selenge
Senegal
Songhua
Sukhona
Tapajós
Tsangpo
Ucayali
Uruguay
Vistula
Yangtze
Yenisei
Zambezi
Araguaia
Arkansas
Canadian
Chindwin
Cimarron
Colorado
Columbia
Dniester
Flinders
Georgina
Ghaghara
Godavari
Guaviare
Huallaga
Khatanga
Missouri
Okavango
Paraguay
Red Rock
Rukarara
Shebelle
Vychegda
Zhujiang
Allegheny
Amu Darya
Athabasca
Blue Nile
Chambeshi
Churchill
Condamine
Essequibo
Euphrates
Indigirka
Jefferson
Kuskokwim
Mackenzie
Magdalena
Pilcomayo
Syr Darya
Tennessee
Tocantins
Warburton
Ayeyarwady
Beaverhead
Cumberland
Kızılırmak
Nyabarongo
Río Grande
White Nile
Brahmaputra
Mississippi
Saint Clair
Saint Louis
Saint Marys
Yellowstone
Hell Roaring
Murrumbidgee
Saskatchewan
Yellow River
Madre de Dios
Shatt al-Arab
São Francisco
Sênggê Zangbo
Northern Dvina
Paraíba do Sul
Saint Lawrence
Río de la Plata
Seversky Donets
Grande de Santiago
Nizhnyaya Tunguska
North Saskatchewan
Podkamennaya Tunguska

That’s all ! Neat, isn’t it ?

Best Regards,

guy038

That reminds me of the stories about the first computers, which was a human job title, for those that computed but also had to do flow control! When ways were figured out in how to do parts of the job, first via mechanical means, and then electronic, the resulting machines came to be known as computers.

Is it possible to sort a file by line length??

Yes, not natively, but there is a Notepad++ plugin for it: Linesort v1.1 (but only for 32bit Notepad++) :

https://webarchive.org/web/20200207125518/http://www.scout-soft.com/linesort/

Yes, your new attempt, Alan, is the solution, when working with UTF8 encoded files, which may content multi-bytes encoded chars !

As for me, I was thinking about the opposite solution : to convert UTf8-files to ANSI. However, when using this solution, some characters may result in question marks or may be changed for an approximate character, because, they do not belong to the the corresponding ANSI table of 256 characters !

For instance, in my previous list of rivers, the Turkish Kızılırmak river, containing the Latin lowercase pointless letter ı, ( of code-point \x{0131} ), is changed into the approximate name Kizilirmak, after conversion to ANSI !

Anyway, we just did our best to solve the OP’s problem ;-))

BR

guy038

The Python len function is apparently simple-minded in this case

Perhaps this new one-liner is better, for the case where the OP has Unicode data:

editor.setText(['\r\n','\r','\n'][editor.getEOLMode()].join(sorted(editor.getText().splitlines(),key=lambda x:len(unicode(x,'utf-8')))))

Of course, still big assumption that the OP is using (or is willing to use) Pythonscript! ;)

names are not sorted alphabetically

This is outside the scope of the originally stated problem! :)

containing accentuated characters…are located outside their section

The Python len function is apparently simple-minded in this case (using a simple byte count for the length of these strings containing multibyte characters).

My previous list of rivers contained 5 duplicate names :

Red, Murray, Yenisei, Araguaia and Colorado

But this is not important, regarding our problem, anyway !

As you can see, @@dave-pruce, the Python solution, from Alan, is neater ! Isn’t it ?

Now, Alan, I’ve just tested your one-line script and, to my mind, there’s two problems :

• Inside a section of river names, of a same length, the names are not sorted alphabetically !

• Secondly, some names, containing accentuated characters, as, for instance, the Içá river, are located outside their section, as noticed, below :

Snake
Volta
Tobol
Jubba
Içá
Pecos
Benue
Iriri
Lerma

Cheers,

guy038

Hey, guys, it’s not a competition, OK !

Haha. No, definitely not. A support forum is about giving posters options to solving problems where there is not a very clear answer. It seems we’ve done that so far in this thread! :)

BTW, that was what I anticipated: A lot of manual steps. :)

The work-around comes from a simple idea. Imagine these 5 lines, below !

wxyz
defghijklm
no
abcd
pqrstuv

To begin with, right justify these 5 lines. So you get :

      wxyz
defghijklm
        no
      abcd
   pqrstuv

Now, run a simple ascending alphabetic sort

        no
      abcd
      wxyz
   pqrstuv
defghijklm

Nice ! We have, automatically, all the lines sorted by line length.

To end, you just have to get rid of the leading spaces, giving the expected text :

no
abcd
wxyz
pqrstuv
defghijklm

In addition, notice that lines of same length are, also, sorted alphabetically, too ;-))

OK ! Let’s use a real list. From, the link, below :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_by_length

I got, for instance, after some re-formating, an English world list of 243 rivers, below, pasted in a new N++ tab :

Nile
White Nile
Kagera
Nyabarongo
Mwogo
Rukarara
Amazon
Ucayali
Tambo
Ene
Mantaro
Yangtze
Mississippi
Missouri
Jefferson
Beaverhead
Red Rock
Hell Roaring
Yenisei
Angara
Selenge
Ider
Yellow River
Ob
Irtysh
Río de la Plata
Paraná
Congo
Chambeshi
Amur
Argun
Kherlen
Lena
Mekong
Mackenzie
Slave
Peace
Finlay
Niger
Brahmaputra
Tsangpo
Murray
Darling
Culgoa
Balonne
Condamine
Tocantins
Araguaia
Volga
Indus
Sênggê Zangbo
Shatt al-Arab
Euphrates
Murat
Madeira
Mamoré
Caine
Rocha
Purús
Yukon
São Francisco
Syr Darya
Naryn
Salween
Saint Lawrence
Niagara
Detroit
Saint Clair
Saint Marys
Saint Louis
North
Nizhnyaya Tunguska
Danube
Breg
Zambezi
Vilyuy
Araguaia
Ganges
Hooghly
Padma
Amu Darya
Panj
Japurá
Nelson
Saskatchewan
Paraguay
Kolyma
Pilcomayo
Biya
Katun
Ishim
Juruá
Ural
Arkansas
Colorado
Olenyok
Dnieper
Aldan
Ubangi
Uele
Negro
Columbia
Zhujiang
Red
Ayeyarwady
Kasai
Ohio
Allegheny
Orinoco
Tarim
Xingu
Orange
Salado
Vitim
Tigris
Songhua
Tapajós
Don
Podkamennaya Tunguska
Pechora
Kama
Limpopo
Chulym
Guaporé
Indigirka
Snake
Senegal
Uruguay
Blue Nile
Churchill
Khatanga
Okavango
Volta
Beni
Platte
Tobol
Alazeya
Jubba
Shebelle
Içá
Magdalena
Han
Kura
Oka
Murray
Guaviare
Pecos
Murrumbidgee
Yenisei
Godavari
Colorado
Río Grande
Belaya
Cooper
Barcoo
Marañón
Dniester
Benue
Ili
Warburton
Georgina
Sutlej
Yamuna
Vyatka
Fraser
Brazos
Liao
Lachlan
Yalong
Iguaçu
Olyokma
Northern Dvina
Sukhona
Krishna
Iriri
Narmada
Lomami
Ottawa
Lerma
Grande de Santiago
Elbe
Vltava
Zeya
Juruena
Rhine
Athabasca
Canadian
North Saskatchewan
Vistula
Bug
Vaal
Shire
Ogooué
Nen
Kızılırmak
Markha
Green
Milk
Chindwin
Sankuru
Wu
Red
James
Kapuas
Desna
Helmand
Madre de Dios
Tietê
Vychegda
Sepik
Cimarron
Anadyr
Paraíba do Sul
Jialing
Liard
Cumberland
White
Huallaga
Kwango
Draa
Gambia
Tyung
Chenab
Yellowstone
Ghaghara
Huai
Aras
Chu
Seversky Donets
Bermejo
Fly
Kuskokwim
Tennessee
Oder
Warta
Aruwimi
Daugava
Gila
Loire
Essequibo
Khoper
Tagus
Flinders

Ironically, we’re going to classify them, according to the length of their name and not according to their length ;-))

First, we’ll, roughly, estimate the maximum length of the listed names, with the generic regex (?-s)^.{N,}

• Open the Replace window ( Ctrl + H )

• Select the Regular expression search mode

  • (?-s)^.{30,} and a click on the Count button => 0 matches

  • (?-s)^.{25,} and a click on the Count button => 0 matches

  • (?-s)^.{20,} and a click on the Count button => 1 match

=> The maximum length is between 20 and 25. So, we’ll rely on the upper boundary 25 in the subsequent regexes :

For all the subsequent regex S/R :

• Tick the Wrap around option

• Click on the Replace All button, exclusively, to process each S/R

We’ll begin to add 25 space chars, at end of each line of the list :

SEARCH (?-s)^.+

REPLACE $0 ( and type in 25 space characters, right after $0, in the Replace zone

Note : In case, you would need, for an other list, additional space chars, at end of lines, just re-run this S/R to get 50, 75, 100, spaces and so on !

Then, use the following regex S/R, in order to truncate any standard character, located after the 25 column :

SEARCH (?-s)^.{25}\K.+

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Now, we’re going to right justify all these names, with the regex S/R :

SEARCH (?-s)^(.+?)(\x20{2,})$

REPLACE \2\1

You should get the following text ( I simply put the beginning and end of the list, in order to limit my post length ! ) :

                     Nile
               White Nile
                   Kagera
               Nyabarongo
                    Mwogo
                 Rukarara
                   Amazon
                  Ucayali
                    Tambo
                      Ene
.........................
.........................
.........................
                     Oder
                    Warta
                  Aruwimi
                  Daugava
                     Gila
                    Loire
                Essequibo
                   Khoper
                    Tagus
                 Flinders

Now, we perform the usual alphabetic sort ( Edit > Line Operations > Sort Lines Lexicographically Ascending ) and we get :

                       Ob
                       Wu
                      Bug
                      Chu
                      Don
                      Ene
                      Fly
                      Han
                      Ili
                      Içá
                      Nen
                      Oka
                      Red
                      Red
                     Amur
                     Aras
                     Beni
.........................
.........................
.........................
             Hell Roaring
             Murrumbidgee
             Saskatchewan
             Yellow River
            Madre de Dios
            Shatt al-Arab
            São Francisco
            Sênggê Zangbo
           Northern Dvina
           Paraíba do Sul
           Saint Lawrence
          Río de la Plata
          Seversky Donets
       Grande de Santiago
       Nizhnyaya Tunguska
       North Saskatchewan
    Podkamennaya Tunguska

To end, we get rid of all the leading spaces, with :

SEARCH ^\x20+

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

and we get our expected list :

Ob
Wu
Bug
Chu
Don
Ene
Fly
Han
Ili
Içá
Nen
Oka
Red
Red
Amur
Aras
Beni
Biya
Breg
Draa
..............
..............
..............
Saint Louis
Saint Marys
Yellowstone
Hell Roaring
Murrumbidgee
Saskatchewan
Yellow River
Madre de Dios
Shatt al-Arab
São Francisco
Sênggê Zangbo
Northern Dvina
Paraíba do Sul
Saint Lawrence
Río de la Plata
Seversky Donets
Grande de Santiago
Nizhnyaya Tunguska
North Saskatchewan
Podkamennaya Tunguska

Note that this kind of text manipulation should certainly be programmed, in a more elegant way, with a Python or Lua script ;-)) Unfortunately, my skills in that matter are quite poor :-((

However, I’m sure that some gurus, as @alan-kilborn, @ekopalypse @peterjones or dail, will probably be able to give you a script solution, that, of course, will require you to install the Python or Lua interpreter !

Hey, guys, it’s not a competition, OK !

Best Regards,

guy038

editor.setText(['\r\n','\r','\n'][editor.getEOLMode()].join(sorted(editor.getText().splitlines(),key=len)))

And since it is a one-liner, one doesn’t even have to create a file for it. Just open a Pythonscript Console window (Plugins > Pythonscript > Show Console) and then find the little box that has >>> to its left in the console window and paste the above there. Press Enter to execute it for the active Notepad++ file.

Sadly, the bigger hurdle would be getting Pythonscript installed. :-(

I’ll have to see the number of steps involved to see if it invalidates my original “no”. :)

@dave-pruce :

Still, as gently as possible, I can whisper to you : There a possible work-around, which only uses native N++ features ;-))

As it’s about 1.40 a.m, presently, in France, I hope to be able to post my solution, tomorrow. So just be patient, a while !

Best Regards,

guy038

As gently as possible…quiet now…here it comes: no (sorry), not with Notepad++ itself.

A lot of other ways, though: think “programming”.