ripgrep: add --sort and --sortr flags

These flags each accept one of five choices: none, path, modified,
accessed or created. The value indicates how the results are sorted.
For --sort, results are sorted in ascending order where as for --sortr,
results are sorted in descending order.

Closes #404

complete/_rg

@@ -188,8 +188,21 @@ _rg() {
     {-r+,--replace=}'[specify string used to replace matches]:replace string'
 
     + '(sort)' # File-sorting options
-    '(threads)--sort-files[sort results by file path (disables parallelism)]'
-    $no"--no-sort-files[don't sort results by file path]"
+    '(threads)--sort=[sort results in ascending order (disables parallelism)]:sort method:((
+      none\:"no sorting"
+      path\:"sort by file path"
+      modified\:"sort by last modified time"
+      accessed\:"sort by last accessed time"
+      created\:"sort by creation time"
+    ))'
+    '(threads)--sortr=[sort results in descending order (disables parallelism)]:sort method:((
+      none\:"no sorting"
+      path\:"sort by file path"
+      modified\:"sort by last modified time"
+      accessed\:"sort by last accessed time"
+      created\:"sort by creation time"
+    ))'
+    '!(threads)--sort-files[sort results by file path (disables parallelism)]'
 
     + '(stats)' # Statistics options
     '(--files file-match)--stats[show search statistics]'
@@ -200,7 +213,7 @@ _rg() {
     $no"(--null-data)--no-text[don't search binary files as if they were text]"
 
     + '(threads)' # Thread-count options
-    '(--sort-files)'{-j+,--threads=}'[specify approximate number of threads to use]:number of threads'
+    '(sort)'{-j+,--threads=}'[specify approximate number of threads to use]:number of threads'
 
     + '(trim)' # Trim options
     '--trim[trim any ASCII whitespace prefix from each line]'

src/app.rs

@@ -600,6 +600,8 @@ pub fn all_args_and_flags() -> Vec<RGArg> {
     flag_search_zip(&mut args);
     flag_smart_case(&mut args);
     flag_sort_files(&mut args);
+    flag_sort(&mut args);
+    flag_sortr(&mut args);
     flag_stats(&mut args);
     flag_text(&mut args);
     flag_threads(&mut args);
@@ -1923,21 +1925,94 @@ This overrides the -s/--case-sensitive and -i/--ignore-case flags.
 }
 
 fn flag_sort_files(args: &mut Vec<RGArg>) {
-    const SHORT: &str = "Sort results by file path. Implies --threads=1.";
+    const SHORT: &str = "DEPRECATED";
     const LONG: &str = long!("\
+DEPRECATED: Use --sort or --sortr instead.
+
 Sort results by file path. Note that this currently disables all parallelism
 and runs search in a single thread.
 
 This flag can be disabled with --no-sort-files.
 ");
     let arg = RGArg::switch("sort-files")
         .help(SHORT).long_help(LONG)
-        .overrides("no-sort-files");
+        .hidden()
+        .overrides("no-sort-files")
+        .overrides("sort")
+        .overrides("sortr");
     args.push(arg);
 
     let arg = RGArg::switch("no-sort-files")
         .hidden()
-        .overrides("sort-files");
+        .overrides("sort-files")
+        .overrides("sort")
+        .overrides("sortr");
+    args.push(arg);
+}
+
+fn flag_sort(args: &mut Vec<RGArg>) {
+    const SHORT: &str =
+        "Sort results in ascending order. Implies --threads=1.";
+    const LONG: &str = long!("\
+This flag enables sorting of results in ascending order. The possible values
+for this flag are:
+
+    path        Sort by file path.
+    modified    Sort by the last modified time on a file.
+    accessed    Sort by the last accessed time on a file.
+    created     Sort by the cretion time on a file.
+    none        Do not sort results.
+
+If the sorting criteria isn't available on your system (for example, creation
+time is not available on ext4 file systems), then ripgrep will attempt to
+detect this and print an error without searching any results. Otherwise, the
+sort order is unspecified.
+
+To sort results in reverse or descending order, use the --sortr flag. Also,
+this flag overrides --sortr.
+
+Note that sorting results currently always forces ripgrep to abandon
+parallelism and run in a single thread.
+");
+    let arg = RGArg::flag("sort", "SORTBY")
+        .help(SHORT).long_help(LONG)
+        .possible_values(&["path", "modified", "accessed", "created", "none"])
+        .overrides("sortr")
+        .overrides("sort-files")
+        .overrides("no-sort-files");
+    args.push(arg);
+}
+
+fn flag_sortr(args: &mut Vec<RGArg>) {
+    const SHORT: &str =
+        "Sort results in descending order. Implies --threads=1.";
+    const LONG: &str = long!("\
+This flag enables sorting of results in descending order. The possible values
+for this flag are:
+
+    path        Sort by file path.
+    modified    Sort by the last modified time on a file.
+    accessed    Sort by the last accessed time on a file.
+    created     Sort by the cretion time on a file.
+    none        Do not sort results.
+
+If the sorting criteria isn't available on your system (for example, creation
+time is not available on ext4 file systems), then ripgrep will attempt to
+detect this and print an error without searching any results. Otherwise, the
+sort order is unspecified.
+
+To sort results in ascending order, use the --sort flag. Also, this flag
+overrides --sort.
+
+Note that sorting results currently always forces ripgrep to abandon
+parallelism and run in a single thread.
+");
+    let arg = RGArg::flag("sortr", "SORTBY")
+        .help(SHORT).long_help(LONG)
+        .possible_values(&["path", "modified", "accessed", "created", "none"])
+        .overrides("sort")
+        .overrides("sort-files")
+        .overrides("no-sort-files");
     args.push(arg);
 }
 

src/args.rs

@@ -1,10 +1,11 @@
 use std::cmp;
 use std::env;
 use std::ffi::OsStr;
-use std::fs::File;
+use std::fs::{self, File};
 use std::io::{self, BufRead};
 use std::path::{Path, PathBuf};
 use std::sync::Arc;
+use std::time::SystemTime;
 
 use atty;
 use clap;
@@ -360,6 +361,120 @@ enum OutputKind {
     JSON,
 }
 
+/// The sort criteria, if present.
+#[derive(Clone, Copy, Debug, Eq, PartialEq)]
+struct SortBy {
+    /// Whether to reverse the sort criteria (i.e., descending order).
+    reverse: bool,
+    /// The actual sorting criteria.
+    kind: SortByKind,
+}
+
+#[derive(Clone, Copy, Debug, Eq, PartialEq)]
+enum SortByKind {
+    /// No sorting at all.
+    None,
+    /// Sort by path.
+    Path,
+    /// Sort by last modified time.
+    LastModified,
+    /// Sort by last accessed time.
+    LastAccessed,
+    /// Sort by creation time.
+    Created,
+}
+
+impl SortBy {
+    fn asc(kind: SortByKind) -> SortBy {
+        SortBy { reverse: false, kind: kind }
+    }
+
+    fn desc(kind: SortByKind) -> SortBy {
+        SortBy { reverse: true, kind: kind }
+    }
+
+    fn none() -> SortBy {
+        SortBy::asc(SortByKind::None)
+    }
+
+    /// Try to check that the sorting criteria selected is actually supported.
+    /// If it isn't, then an error is returned.
+    fn check(&self) -> Result<()> {
+        match self.kind {
+            SortByKind::None | SortByKind::Path => {}
+            SortByKind::LastModified => {
+                env::current_exe()?.metadata()?.modified()?;
+            }
+            SortByKind::LastAccessed => {
+                env::current_exe()?.metadata()?.accessed()?;
+            }
+            SortByKind::Created => {
+                env::current_exe()?.metadata()?.created()?;
+            }
+        }
+        Ok(())
+    }
+
+    fn configure_walk_builder(self, builder: &mut WalkBuilder) {
+        // This isn't entirely optimal. In particular, we will wind up issuing
+        // a stat for many files redundantly. Aside from having potentially
+        // inconsistent results with respect to sorting, this is also slow.
+        // We could fix this here at the expense of memory by caching stat
+        // calls. A better fix would be to find a way to push this down into
+        // directory traversal itself, but that's a somewhat nasty change.
+        match self.kind {
+            SortByKind::None => {}
+            SortByKind::Path => {
+                if self.reverse {
+                    builder.sort_by_file_name(|a, b| a.cmp(b).reverse());
+                } else {
+                    builder.sort_by_file_name(|a, b| a.cmp(b));
+                }
+            }
+            SortByKind::LastModified => {
+                builder.sort_by_file_path(move |a, b| {
+                    sort_by_metadata_time(
+                        a, b,
+                        self.reverse,
+                        |md| md.modified(),
+                    )
+                });
+            }
+            SortByKind::LastAccessed => {
+                builder.sort_by_file_path(move |a, b| {
+                    sort_by_metadata_time(
+                        a, b,
+                        self.reverse,
+                        |md| md.accessed(),
+                    )
+                });
+            }
+            SortByKind::Created => {
+                builder.sort_by_file_path(move |a, b| {
+                    sort_by_metadata_time(
+                        a, b,
+                        self.reverse,
+                        |md| md.created(),
+                    )
+                });
+            }
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+impl SortByKind {
+    fn new(kind: &str) -> SortByKind {
+        match kind {
+            "none" => SortByKind::None,
+            "path" => SortByKind::Path,
+            "modified" => SortByKind::LastModified,
+            "accessed" => SortByKind::LastAccessed,
+            "created" => SortByKind::Created,
+            _ => SortByKind::None,
+        }
+    }
+}
+
 impl ArgMatches {
     /// Create an ArgMatches from clap's parse result.
     fn new(clap_matches: clap::ArgMatches<'static>) -> ArgMatches {
@@ -678,9 +793,9 @@ impl ArgMatches {
         if !self.no_ignore() {
             builder.add_custom_ignore_filename(".rgignore");
         }
-        if self.is_present("sort-files") {
-            builder.sort_by_file_name(|a, b| a.cmp(b));
-        }
+        let sortby = self.sort_by()?;
+        sortby.check()?;
+        sortby.configure_walk_builder(&mut builder);
         Ok(builder)
     }
 }
@@ -1234,6 +1349,22 @@ impl ArgMatches {
         self.value_of_lossy("replace").map(|s| s.into_bytes())
     }
 
+    /// Returns the sorting criteria based on command line parameters.
+    fn sort_by(&self) -> Result<SortBy> {
+        // For backcompat, continue supporting deprecated --sort-files flag.
+        if self.is_present("sort-files") {
+            return Ok(SortBy::asc(SortByKind::Path));
+        }
+        let sortby = match self.value_of_lossy("sort") {
+            None => match self.value_of_lossy("sortr") {
+                None => return Ok(SortBy::none()),
+                Some(choice) => SortBy::desc(SortByKind::new(&choice)),
+            }
+            Some(choice) => SortBy::asc(SortByKind::new(&choice)),
+        };
+        Ok(sortby)
+    }
+
     /// Returns true if and only if aggregate statistics for a search should
     /// be tracked.
     ///
@@ -1289,7 +1420,7 @@ impl ArgMatches {
 
     /// Return the number of threads that should be used for parallelism.
     fn threads(&self) -> Result<usize> {
-        if self.is_present("sort-files") {
+        if self.sort_by()?.kind != SortByKind::None {
             return Ok(1);
         }
         let threads = self.usize_of("threads")?.unwrap_or(0);
@@ -1503,6 +1634,34 @@ fn u64_to_usize(
     }
 }
 
+/// Builds a comparator for sorting two files according to a system time
+/// extracted from the file's metadata.
+///
+/// If there was a problem extracting the metadata or if the time is not
+/// available, then both entries compare equal.
+fn sort_by_metadata_time<G>(
+    p1: &Path,
+    p2: &Path,
+    reverse: bool,
+    get_time: G,
+) -> cmp::Ordering
+where G: Fn(&fs::Metadata) -> io::Result<SystemTime>
+{
+    let t1 = match p1.metadata().and_then(|md| get_time(&md)) {
+        Ok(t) => t,
+        Err(_) => return cmp::Ordering::Equal,
+    };
+    let t2 = match p2.metadata().and_then(|md| get_time(&md)) {
+        Ok(t) => t,
+        Err(_) => return cmp::Ordering::Equal,
+    };
+    if reverse {
+        t1.cmp(&t2).reverse()
+    } else {
+        t1.cmp(&t2)
+    }
+}
+
 /// Returns true if and only if stdin is deemed searchable.
 #[cfg(unix)]
 fn stdin_is_readable() -> bool {