How to sort with multiple lines in bash?

Question

I am trying to sort a list of names followed by another string such as:

John Doe
AVAIL

Sara Doe
CALL

Jim Doe
AVAIL

I am trying to sort th

Answer 1

not directly, but you can use some intermediate form like this. i am assuming that your value (CALL, AVAIL, etc.) is limited. otherwise you need to use patterns that are more complicated, but it can be done. actually anything can be done in bash :-)

cat sorting | sed -n '1h; 1!H; ${ g; s/\nCALL\n/::CALL::/g; s/\nAVAIL\n/::AVAIL::/g ; s/\nAVAIL/::AVAIL::/g p }' | sort | sed "s/::/\n/g"
Jim Doe
AVAIL

John Doe
AVAIL

Sara Doe
CALL