Sorting words (not lines) in VIM

Question

The built-in VIM :sort command sorts lines of text. I want to sort words in a single line, e.g. transform the line

b a d c e f

Answer 1

Here's the equivalent in pure vimscript:

 :call setline('.',join(sort(split(getline('.'),' ')),' '))

It's no shorter or simpler, but if this is something you do often, you can run it across a range of lines:

 :%call setline('.',join(sort(split(getline('.'),' ')),' '))

Or make a command

 :command -nargs=0 -range SortLine ,call setline('.',join(sort(split(getline('.'),' ')),' '))

Which you can use with

:SortLine
:'<,'>SortLine
:%SortLine

etc etc