Re: [sort] Suggestion: count keys from the end of record

[Pádraig Brady]

On 13/08/2023 15:40, Renaud Pacalet wrote:
> I am a bit surprised that it has never been suggested before but I could
> not find any trace of it, so here it is:
>
> Would it be possible to specify the sorting keys from the end of the
> record, instead of the beginning. Something like sort -k-1,-1 to sort on
> the last field of each record, sort -k-2,-2 for the second to last...
>
> This would be handy when the format has a variable number of fields per
> record but the last records are well defined.

I vaguely remember this being suggested before ...
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2006-12/msg00008.html

The interface and functionality does make sense.
The only question I have is if it is functionality that is needed often enough.

cheers,
Pádraig