Sort code code blocks based on case labels

Question

How to sort the code blocks associated with each case (as part of a large case switch construct) based on the case label?

I want to convert -

switch(val)
{
    case C_LABEL:
        /* do something */
        break;

    case A_LABEL:
        /* do something else*/
        break;

    case B_LABEL:
        /* do something really different */
        break;

    default:
        printf("'val' not recognized");
}

at -

switch(val)
{
    case A_LABEL:
        /* do something else */
        break;

    case B_LABEL:
        /* do something really different */
        break;

    case C_LABEL:
        /* do something */
        break;

    default:
        printf("'val' not recognized");
}

Answer 1

• Turn each case into one liner:

  :fromline,tolineg/case/.,/break/s/\n/§
  

• Sorting:

  :fromline,tolinesort
  

• Reformat them:

  :fromline,tolines/§/\r/g
  

Notes:

• Visual mode can be a practical way to determine the range for these commands.
• You can make a macro if you need to do this often.

Answer 2

My AdvancedSorters Plugin simplifies the steps described in @romainl's answer:

:/^switch/+2,/default:/-1 SortRangesByHeader /case /

case. :SortRangesByHeader case .

Answer 3

:

:command! -range SortCases execute "<line1>,<line2>!ruby -e 'puts STDIN.read.split(/(?<=\\n)(?=[\\x20\\x09]*(?:case|default)\\b)/).sort'"

then you can do vi{:SortCases<CR>to do what you need to do.

Answer 4

I wrote a plugin for this with the following command:

:SortBlockBy case

Check it out https://github.com/chiedo/vim-sort-blocks-by