NAME
	AVLSort - Sort a file.

SYNOPSIS
	AVLSort From To COLSTART/k WIDTH/k CASE/s REVERSE/s

DESCRIPTION
	AVLSort was written to remedy several defects of the ARP Sort
	command.  AVLSort places each line of text in an AVL tree,
	which has reasonable worst-case performance, even for large
	files.  I have not made speed comparisons with AmigaDos Sort
	or with ARP Sort.

	This program can handle large files, up to available memory.
	There is no arbitrary limit on the number of lines in the file
	(I have seen a report that ARP Sort is limited to 32767 lines).

	The order of otherwise identical lines does not change in the
	output file.  This can happen in ARP Sort when using the
	COLSTART and WIDTH switches.

	If you omit the From argument from Sort, it reads from its
	standard input, which allows it to be used in pipelines.

OPTIONS
	COLSTART n
		This takes a numeric argument which gives the starting
		column for the sort. All entries to the left of this
		column will not be considered in the final arrangement.

	WIDTH n
		This takes a numeric argument, which gives the width
		for the sort.  You can use this to specify a 'window'
		for Sort to work on.  For example, using a WIDTH of 4
		will arrange a file based on the first 4 characters of
		each line.  If you also use COLSTART, then the first 4
		characters starting at that column will be the ones on
		which the sort is based.

	CASE
		The CASE switch will use a case-sensitive match, rather
		than the default case-insensitive match.

	REVERSE
		The REVERSE switch will cause the sorted file to be
		printed in reverse order.  This switch is not part
		of the AmigaDos or ARP Sort commands.

EXAMPLE
	list >listfile
	avlsort listfile colstart 41
	or using pipes: list | avlsort colstart 41

	This gives a listing of all files sorted by time (i.e., from
	the earliest to the latest).

BUGS
	File size is limited by available memory.

SEE ALSO
	ARP Sort

CREDITS
	The AVL tree package was written by Mark E. Mallett of Zinn
	Computer Company, copyright 1988.

	The startup code is by Sebastiano Vigna, based on previous
	work by Scott Ballantine and John Toebes.

	Much of this document (AVLSORT.DOC) was lifted from the ARP
	documentation for Sort.