Re: Ordering data in a file.

As an old awk head I would first reach for this simple perl-based approach:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

$/ = '#';
print sort (<DATA>);

__DATA__
#12346
orange
#12345
apple
banana
#12344
pear
[download]

Note that this uses a lexical sort which somewhat coincidentally works for the given data set. If your actual data set is more varied you will probably need to use a different sorting block.

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom