Line Sorter

Lexicographic sort compares strings character by character using Unicode code points. Uppercase letters (A=65) sort before lowercase (a=97) by default. Numbers at the start of strings: "10" comes before "2" lexicographically (because "1" < "2" at position 0). For natural number sorting ("2" before "10"), use the numeric sort option. Case-insensitive mode converts all lines to lowercase for comparison before sorting.

Use numeric sort mode. Alphabetical sort treats all values as strings, so "10" < "2" (because "1" < "2" character-wise). Numeric sort uses parseFloat() to compare numeric values, placing 2 before 10. Lines that cannot be parsed as numbers are sorted separately. For mixed content (numbers and strings), all lines are compared by their parsed numeric value where possible.

Random sort uses the Fisher-Yates shuffle algorithm, which produces a uniformly random permutation. It is used to randomize the order of a list — for example, shuffling a list of names for random assignment, randomizing flashcards, or creating random playlists. Each shuffle run produces a different order. Note: the built-in Math.random() is not cryptographically secure — do not use for security-sensitive randomization.

Linux/Mac: "sort file.txt" (alphabetical), "sort -r file.txt" (reverse), "sort -n file.txt" (numeric), "sort -k2 file.txt" (by field 2). "shuf file.txt" shuffles. Windows PowerShell: "Get-Content file.txt | Sort-Object". Python: "sorted(open('f.txt').readlines(), key=str.casefold)". These handle files of any size, while browser tools are limited by available memory.

A stable sort preserves the original relative order of elements that compare as equal. JavaScript's Array.prototype.sort() is guaranteed stable since ECMAScript 2019 — all modern browsers implement stable sort. This means lines with identical sort keys (e.g., same length in length-sort mode) appear in their original order relative to each other. The sort results in this tool are stable.