.TH mksort "" "" "Command"
.PC "Sort the standard input, allowing arbitrarily long lines"
\fB/usr/lib/mail/mksort [ \-f ] [ \fIfile ...  \^\fB]\fR
.PP
Mksort takes lines as input, sorts them by the first field
and writes them to the standard output. The first field
is delimited by whitespace or by the colon character (:).
The lines can be of any length, as long as the entire
input can be stored in memory. With -f the sort is per-
formed independent of case, so that the letter ``A'' com-
pares equal to the letter ``a'' and ``a'' is always less
than ``B.''
.PP
If no input files are specified, the standard input is
read. In addition, if a filename of - is given, the stan-
dard input is inserted at that point.

The mksort program can be used in combination with
mkline(8) to produce sorted files containing arbitrarily
large aliases or paths which can then be read by a
smail(8) pathalias router or aliasfile director.  The
router or director should be configured to use the bsearch
file access protocol. See smail(5) for more information
on routers and directors.

EXAMPLE
As an example of the use of mksort with mkline consider a
file, aliases, containing the following aliasing informa-
tion:
.DM
	Postmaster:hustead # Ted Hustead, jr.
	UUCP-Postmasters: tron, chongo   # namei contacts
	    yamato  # kremvax contact
	tron:      tron@namei.uucp (Ronald S. Karr)
	yamato:    yamato@kremvax.ussr.comm (Yamato T. Yankelovich)
	chongo:    chongo@eek.uts.amdahl.com (Landon Curt Noll)
.DE
.PP
Given  this  file,  the command mkline aliases | mksort -f
will yield:
.DM
	chongo:chongo@eek.uts.amdahl.com
	Postmaster:hustead
	tron:tron@namei.uucp
	UUCP-Postmasters:tron,chongo yamato
	yamato:yamato@kremvax.ussr.comm
.DE
.SH "See Also"
.B
commands,
mail (overview)
mkline,
mkdbm,
smail,
pathalias
.R
.SH Notes
Copyright \(co 1987, 1988 Ronald S. Karr and Landon Curt Noll.
Copyright \(co 1992 Ronald S. Karr.
.PP
For details on the distribution rights and restrictions
associated with this software, see file
.BR COPYING ,
which is included with the source code to the
.B smail
system; or type the command:
.BR "smail \-bc" .
