Sorting on Same Line Bash

Question

Hello I am trying to sort a set of numeric command line arguments and then echo them back out in reverse numeric order on the same line with a space between each. I have this loop:

for var in "$@"
do
echo -n "$var "
done | sort -rn

However when I added the -n to the echo the sort command stops working. I am trying to do this without using printf. Using the echo -n they do not sort and simply print in the order they were entered.

Answer 1

You can do it like this:

a=( $@ )
b=( $(printf "%s\n" ${a[@]} | sort -rn) )

printf "%s\n" ${b[@]}
# b is reverse sorted nuemrically now