#!/bin/bash function die() { echo "$1" exit $2 } [[ -z "$1" ]] && die "No string to find." 1 STRING=$1 SORTSTR="$(for ((i=0;i<${#STRING};i++)); do echo "${STRING:i:1}"; done | sort | tr -d '\n')" # kind of this echo "Sorted: $SORTSTR" grep "$SORTSTR" "$HOME/wordssort" | awk '{print $2}'