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Full Discussion: Sort command question
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Sort command question Post 302871233 by Don Cragun on Tuesday 5th of November 2013 05:29:28 PM
Old 11-05-2013
The sort utility key field specifiers -k 1,3 and -k 12,4 are specifying ranges of fields (not output print columns). To sort on the 1st three characters (still not print columns) on the line as the primary sort key and the 12th through the 15th characters of the 1st field as the secondary sort key the way to specify it would be:
Code:
sort -k1.1,1.3 -k1.12,1.15 input.txt >output.txt

which would save:
Code:
3302013020101NS        40
348201310013RVE         2
600201309013GFJ        70
600201310013GFJ        70

in output.txt for the given sample input. Note that when all given sort keys give two or more lines the same sort order (as in the last two lines here), the tie is broken by using the entire line as a final increasing order alphanumeric sort key.

PS Note also that sort works on text, not binary data. It sorts characters; not bytes. If the file you're sorting is ASCII it might not matter; but if your text contains UTF-8 multibyte characters; it makes a big difference.

Last edited by Don Cragun; 11-05-2013 at 06:33 PM.. Reason: Note byte != character.
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WRAP-AND-SORT(1)					      General Commands Manual						  WRAP-AND-SORT(1)

NAME
wrap-and-sort - wrap long lines and sort items in Debian packaging files SYNOPSIS
wrap-and-sort [options] DESCRIPTION
wrap-and-sort wraps the package lists in Debian control files. By default the lists will only split into multiple lines if the entries are longer than 80 characters. wrap-and-sort sorts the package lists in Debian control files and all .install files. Beside that wrap-and-sort removes trailing spaces in these files. This script should be run in the root of a Debian package tree. It searches for control, control.in, copyright, copyright.in, install, and *.install in the debian directory. OPTIONS
-h, --help Show this help message and exit. -a, --wrap-always Wrap all package lists in the Debian control file even if the entries are shorter than 80 characters and could fit in one line line. -s, --short-indent Only indent wrapped lines by one space (default is in-line with the field name). -b, --sort-binary-packages Sort binary package paragraphs by name. -k, --keep-first When sorting binary package paragraphs, leave the first one at the top. Unqualified debhelper(7) configuration files are applied to the first package. -n, --no-cleanup Do not remove trailing whitespaces. -d path, --debian-directory=path Location of the debian directory (default: ./debian). -f file, --file=file Wrap and sort only the specified file. You can specify this parameter multiple times. All supported files will be processed if no files are specified. -v, --verbose Print all files that are touched. AUTHORS
wrap-and-sort and this manpage have been written by Benjamin Drung <bdrung@debian.org>. Both are released under the ISC license. DEBIAN
Debian Utilities WRAP-AND-SORT(1)
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