How to sort or order results docker ps --format?

Question

I haven't found any way to order my results when using docker ps

In my case I want to order by .Ports

docker ps -a --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Ports}}"

How do I order the result?

Answer 1

If it's enough to simply sort by output column, you can use the following:

 docker ps -a --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Ports}}" | (read -r; printf "%s\n" "$REPLY"; sort -k 3 )

I also added a code for skipping the table headers and sorting only ps output data.

Answer 2

Format and Order docker ps

List containers

docker ps

Format

docker ps -a --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Ports}}" | (read -r; printf "%s\n" "$REPLY"; sort -k 3 )

Synopsis

docker ps [--format="TEMPLATE"]

--format="TEMPLATE"
  Pretty-print containers using a Go template.
  Valid placeholders:
     .ID - Container ID
     .Image - Image ID
     .Command - Quoted command
     .CreatedAt - Time when the container was created.
     .RunningFor - Elapsed time since the container was started.
     .Ports - Exposed ports.
     .Status - Container status.
     .Size - Container disk size.
     .Names - Container names.
     .Labels - All labels assigned to the container.
     .Label - Value of a specific label for this container. For example {{.Label "com.docker.swarm.cpu"}}
     .Mounts - Names of the volumes mounted in this container.

Display containers with their commands

docker ps --format "{{.ID}}: {{.Command}}"

Display containers with their labels in a table

docker ps --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Labels}}"

Display containers with their node label in a table

docker ps --format 'table {{.ID}}\t{{(.Label "com.docker.swarm.node")}}'

Answer 3

I built a docker ps pretty print function that can be put into your .bash_profile or .bashrc file that works somewhat like an alias for docker ps (with color output). @art-rock-guitar-superhero suggestions shows how to sort, but I've included this answer since typing the --format options and piping into a sort every time is a bit tedious.

function docker () {
    if [[ "$@" == "ps -p" ]]; then
        command docker ps --all --format "{{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Image}}\t{{.Ports}}\t{{.Status}}" \
            | (echo -e "CONTAINER_ID\tNAMES\tIMAGE\tPORTS\tSTATUS" && cat) \
            | awk '{printf "\033[1;32m%s\t\033[01;38;5;95;38;5;196m%s\t\033[00m\033[1;34m%s\t\033[01;90m%s %s %s %s %s %s %s\033[00m\n", $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10;}' \
            | column -s$'\t' -t \
            | awk 'NR<2{print $0;next}{print $0 | "sort --key=2"}'
    else
        command docker "$@"
    fi
}

usage: $ docker ps -p.

EDIT: I added suggestions from the comments from @BrianVosburgh. Also, I kept forgetting to type -p so I switched the flag for this function to be -a, which is my regular usage of docker ps.