Bash Array not sorting correctly

Question

I need to order these 2 arrays, I don't care about the format of the output, I only need it to be ordered in order to compare them but this doesn't seem to work, although it works with simpler text. I also tried removing the --field-separator='"'

DIG_1=("sampletext""zzz""ms=ms91608007""asdas")
DIG_2=("zzz""ms=ms91608007""sampletext""asdas")
echo "unsorted:"
echo ${DIG_1[*]}
echo ${DIG_2[*]}
IFS=$'\n' sorted=($(sort --field-separator='"' <<<"${DIG_1[*]}")); unset IFS
IFS=$'\n' sorted2=($(sort --field-separator='"' <<<"${DIG_2[*]}")); unset IFS
echo "sorted:"
echo ${sorted[*]}
echo ${sorted2[*]}

And the output I get is:

unsorted:
sampletextzzzms=ms91608007asdas
zzzms=ms91608007sampletextasdas
sorted:
sampletextzzzms=ms91608007asdas
zzzms=ms91608007sampletextasdas

How Can I fix this? I want it to be, for example:

unsorted:
sampletextzzzms=ms91608007asdas
zzzms=ms91608007sampletextasdas
sorted:
asdasms=ms91608007sampletextzzz
asdasms=ms91608007sampletextzzz

Answer 1

1. There's no reason to use an array to store one element.

2. Since you need to keep the double quotes, you need to make efforts to preserve them:

    DIG_1='"sampletext""zzz""ms=ms91608007""asdas"'

   Otherwise the double quotes will be removed by the shell: 3.5.9 Quote Removal

3. When you use VAR=value some_command , that variable is only set for the duration of some_command -- bash puts that variable in the environment for the command, not into the shell's own catalog of variables. Subsequently unsetting the variable is not required -- unsetting the IFS variable is potentially harmful for the rest of the program

4. sort won't sort the fields within a record, it's for sorting records against each other. To accomplish what you want, this will do:

    sorted_1=$(grep -Po '(?<=").*?(?=")' <<<"$DIG_1" | sort | paste -s -d "")

Answer 2

As anubhava mentioned in the comments, the current code is creating arrays of single values, ie:

$ DIG_1=("sampletext""zzz""ms=ms91608007""asdas")
$ typeset -p DIG_1
declare -a DIG_1=([0]="sampletextzzzms=ms91608007asdas")

$ DIG_2=("zzz""ms=ms91608007""sampletext""asdas")
$ typeset -p DIG_2
declare -a DIG_2=([0]="zzzms=ms91608007sampletextasdas")

Assuming the OP really does want an array, and that the array elements will be utilized in later code, we need a way to delimit the items of the array, and the easiest way to do this is with some white space, eg:

$ DIG_1=("sample text" "zzz" "ms=ms91608007" "asdas")
$ typeset -p DIG_1
declare -a DIG_1=([0]="sample text" [1]="zzz" [2]="ms=ms91608007" [3]="asdas")

$ DIG_2=("zzz" "ms=ms91608007" "sample text" "asdas")
$ typeset -p DIG_2
declare -a DIG_2=([0]="zzz" [1]="ms=ms91608007" [2]="sample text" [3]="asdas")

NOTE : I've added a single space to change "sampletext" to "sample text" so that we can see how a space is treated a) as part of the data vs b) as a delimiter.

NOTE : Assuming OPs code is generating the questionable array assignments (eg, DIG_1=("sampletext""zzz""ms=ms91608007""asdas") ), it may make more sense to look into ways to 'fix' the array generator than to complicate the code by trying to figure out how to treat these single strings as a 4-part array definition.

Also, since the sample output (current vs desired) shows no double quotes I'm guessing this means the double quotes are not part of the actual data but rather just delimiters.

Now that we have an actual array of elements we can look at sorting the arrays and storing the results into additional (sorted) arrays, eg:

$ IFS=$'\n' sorted=($(printf "%s\n" "${DIG_1[@]}" | sort))
$ typeset -p sorted
declare -a sorted=([0]="asdas" [1]="ms=ms91608007" [2]="sample text" [3]="zzz")

$ IFS=$'\n' sorted2=($(printf "%s\n" "${DIG_2[@]}" | sort))
$ typeset -p sorted2
declare -a sorted2=([0]="asdas" [1]="ms=ms91608007" [2]="sample text" [3]="zzz")

At this point we now have 2 sets of arrays ... 1) original data ( DIG_1[@] and DIG_2[@] ) and 2) sorted ( sorted[@] and sorted2[@] ).

The OP can then slice-n-dice the data as desired, as well as print the contents of the arrays in any desired format, eg:

# print array elements on a single line with no delimiters, storing the results
# in variables for later use/comparison/display

$ printf -v srt "%s" "${sorted[@]}"
$ typeset -p srt
declare -- srt="asdasms=ms91608007sample textzzz"
$ echo "${srt}"
asdasms=ms91608007sample textzzz

$ printf -v srt2 "%s" "${sorted2[@]}"
$ typeset -p srt2
declare -- srt2="asdasms=ms91608007sample textzzz"
$ echo "${srt2}"
asdasms=ms91608007sample textzzz