Thanks talexb for the feedback. I was on holidays for the last two weeks so I'm just answering now.

I think I should explain the task of the script again:
I'm using a lot of MD5 checksum files (md5sums), which hold MD5/file name pairs, for comparison and also for my CD/DVD data backups to verify if they got burned correctly. I also update md5sums files from time to time (see my script addmd5). For several different reasons I like to have these files (i.e. the content of the files) sorted alphabetically after the filename, not the MD5 sum. Therefore a simple sort doesn't work.

The sortmd5 script takes a md5sums file, splits MD5 sums and file names and sorts them after the file names, then joins the lines again and outputs the result.

The default is to work in-place (similar to the -i switch), i.e. write the result back to the original file, if no output file name is given. If the input file had unreadable lines a backup is created before it is overwritten.

Usage example:
The following input MD5 file 

443..29D  test.avi
563..D93  xyz
AB2..FFE  a.file

[download]
is rewritten to: 
AB2..FFE  a.file
443..29D  test.avi
563..D93  xyz

[download]

In reply to Re^2: sortmd5 script by mscharrer
in thread sortmd5 script by mscharrer

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