How to Sort Object in PowerShell

1. Use the Sort-Object Cmdlet to Sort Directory Content in PowerShell
2. Use the Sort-Object Cmdlet to Sort Array Elements in PowerShell

PowerShell has a handy cmdlet Sort-Object to sort objects based on their property values. It can sort objects in ascending or descending order.

When no sort properties are specified in a command, it tries to use the default sort properties of the first input object. The objects to be sorted are piped to the Sort-Object.

This tutorial will teach you to sort objects using PowerShell’s Sort-Object cmdlet.

Use the Sort-Object Cmdlet to Sort Directory Content in PowerShell

The following example sorts the files and sub-directories in a directory: C:\New.

Get-ChildItem C:\New | Sort-Object

Output:

In the above command, the Get-ChildItem cmdlet gets the files and subdirectories in a directory C:\New. The output objects are piped to the Sort-Object cmdlet, which sorts the content by the default property Name.

You can use the -Property parameter to specify the property names.

The following example sorts the files and sub-directories in the C:\New directory by the property Length.

Get-ChildItem C:\New | Sort-Object -Property Length

Output:

The default sorting order is the ascending order. So you must use the -Descending parameter to sort the objects in descending order.

The following example sorts the content in a directory C:\New in descending order based on the property LastWriteTime.

Get-ChildItem C:\New | Sort-Object -Property LastWriteTime -Descending

Output:

Use the Sort-Object Cmdlet to Sort Array Elements in PowerShell

The following command creates an array variable that contains multiple strings:

$array = "apple", "car", "book", "apple", "tree"

The following example sorts array strings in ascending order alphabetically:

$array | Sort-Object

Output:

apple
apple
book
car
tree

With the -Unique parameter, you can remove the duplicate elements and get only the unique ones.

$array | Sort-Object -Unique

Output:

apple
book
car
tree

Similarly, you can store multiple numbers in an array and arrange them in ascending or descending order using Sort-Object:

$num = 1, 2, 5, 7, 89, 54, 35

Next, pipe the array object to the Sort-Object:

$num | Sort-Object

Output:

1
2
5
7
35
54
89

Now you should know how to sort objects and display them in order in PowerShell. See the documentation for Sort-Object for more information.