How do you sort tokens within a line

Question

Sorting lines in Emacs is fairly straightforward with sort-lines.

However, how do I sort within a line? For example: John Ringo Paul George -> George John Paul Ringo

Answer 1

Evaluate the following form (or put it into your .emacs):

(defun your/sort-line ()
  "Sort the current line as you wish."
  (interactive "*")  ; Complain if buffer is read-only.
  (insert (mapconcat #'identity
                     (sort (split-string (prog1 (buffer-substring-no-properties (line-beginning-position) (line-end-position))
                                           (delete-line)))
                           #'string<)
                     "\s")))

Type M-x your/sort-line when the cursor is at the line you want to sort.

Answer 2

There are several sorting commands, and some let you specify how you want "fields" to be defined, and they sort fields. See, for example, sort(-regexp)-fields and sort-numeric-fields, and maybe even sort-columns, depending on what you need.

See the Elisp manual, node Sorting.