Practical usage guide
What this tool does
Line Sorter processes plain text as an ordered list of physical lines. It can sort, keep only the first occurrence of each line, combine de-duplication with sorting, or reverse the current line order. Processing stays in the browser and line endings are normalized from CRLF to LF in the output for predictable copying and comparison.
Options define what counts as the same line and how ordering works. Case-sensitive comparison distinguishes uppercase and lowercase text, numeric mode compares numeric-looking values as numbers, trimming can remove surrounding whitespace before processing, and empty-line removal discards blank results. Sorting uses a fixed English collation behavior so the same options are not silently changed by the browser display language.
Quick start
Choose one line operation
Use Sort to reorder all lines, Unique to preserve the first representative of each value, Sort + Unique to retain one representative and then order the result, or Reverse to flip the current sequence without lexical sorting.
Define comparison rules
Choose ascending or descending order for sorting, decide whether letter case matters, and enable numeric comparison only when lines or their leading values are intended to behave as numbers.
Apply cleanup deliberately
Trim Lines removes leading and trailing whitespace before comparison and output. Remove Empty drops blank lines. Leave both disabled when whitespace and empty records carry meaning.
Review what de-duplication retained
Unique operations keep the first occurrence under the selected comparison settings. With case-insensitive or trimmed comparison, later differently cased or spaced variants may be removed.
Common use cases
Normalize configuration lists
Sort feature names, package identifiers, environment keys, domains, or allowlist entries before reviewing a small configuration change.
Remove repeated imported values
Keep the first occurrence of copied IDs, tags, email-like values, labels, or paths before pasting the cleaned list into another local workflow.
Order numeric line values
Sort ports, counters, version components, sizes, or integer test values numerically rather than obtaining the lexical order 1, 10, 2.
Reverse a short event sequence
Flip copied chronological lines so the newest or oldest entry appears first while preserving the contents of each individual line.
Limitations and important notes
Text sorting uses fixed English semantics
The order is not bytewise, code-point-only, or tailored to every language. Accents, punctuation, mixed scripts, and locale-specific alphabet rules may appear in an order different from a native-language directory.
De-duplication keeps the first representative
The tool does not merge metadata or choose the longest, newest, or most complete variant. Under case-insensitive or trimmed comparison, the first matching line supplies the retained text before any requested sort.
Trimming and empty removal change data
Leading spaces can be meaningful in code, Markdown, fixed-width records, or hierarchy. Empty lines can separate groups. Keep an untouched copy when those distinctions may matter.
Numeric comparison needs review for mixed lines
Numeric mode is intended for number-like values. Lines containing units, labels, locale-specific separators, very large decimals, or partially numeric text may not follow the business order you expect.
The workspace has an input-size limit
Processing is capped at 1,000,000 input characters to avoid unbounded work during automatic updates. Use a streaming script or command-line pipeline for substantially larger lists.