Sorting a string in mips?

Sorting a string in mips?

I am trying to sort a string that is entered by the user. Is there any way
to access a specific element of that string? Here is my mips code:
.data prompt: .asciiz "\n\nEnter an string of characters: " result:
.asciiz "\n\nHere is the string you entered: " buffer: .space 20 .text
main: li $v0, 4 #code for printing a string la $a0, prompt syscall
li $v0, 8 #code for reading a string la $a0, buffer li $a1, 80 syscall
li $v0, 4 #code for printing a string la $a0, result syscall
la $a0, buffer #code for printing a string li $v0, 4 syscall