hi guys.
i am quite new to shell scripting. and i've been practicing coding
in a CSV (comma separated value) file is it possible to sort a specific block?

what do i do if i want to sort these contacts by their birthdays in ascending order (Jan. to Dec.)? And i want only to display their name and birthday?

Here is the file

Sharapova,Maria,19-apr-1987,Brandenton FLorida,USA,admin@mariasharapova.com,+1(954)3387488
Bryant,Kobe,23-aug-1978,L.A. California,USA,kobe@lakers.comk+1(310)87890
Spielberg,Steven,18-dec-1946,L.A.California,USA,steven@dreamworks.com,+1(389)89098
Harnois,Elisabeth,26-may-1979,Detroit Michigan,USA,liz@1treehill.net,+1(313)74564536
Ryan,Michelle,22-apr-1984,Enfield London,UK,mryan@nbc.com,+44(207)2988410
Belle,Camilla,2-oct-19886,Miami Florida,USA,cam_65@hollywood.org, +1(954)3790491
Gellar,Sarah Michelle,14-apr-1977,L.A. California,USA,smg@buffy.com,+1(213)3398848m
Underwood,Carrie,10-mar-1983,Checotah Oklahoma,USA,carrieunderwood@rca.com,+1(918)655423
many thanks!!!

Is perl acceptable?

Well, hopefully I did this for more than my own amusement:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
my @months_numeric = qw(01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12);
my @months_alphas  = qw(jan feb mar apr may jun jul aug sep oct nov dec);
my %months;
@months{@months_alphas} = @months_numeric;
open (my $in , '<', 'path/to/celebs.csv') or die "$!";
my @sorted = map {$_->[0]}
             sort{$a->[1] cmp $b->[1]}
             map {chomp;
                  my $bd = (split(","))[2];
                  my ($d,$m,$y) = split("-",$bd);
                  $d = $d<10 ? "0$d" : $d;
                  [$_,"$y$months{$m}$d"]} <$in>;
close $in;
print "$_\n" for @sorted;

Hi, mozart.

Welcome to the forum. In the future please surround data with code tags so that we can read them easily, and do the same for scripts.

I added a few extra lines to exercise the sorting of fields. This script uses commands often found on *nix. The standard sort has an option for named months:

#!/usr/bin/env sh

# @(#) s1       Demonstrate sorting fields by transforming.

#  ____
# /
# |   Infrastructure BEGIN

echo
set -o nounset

debug=":"
debug="echo"

## The shebang using "env" line is designed for portability. For
#  higher security, use:
#
#  #!/bin/sh -

## Use local command version for the commands in this demonstration.

set +o nounset
echo "(Versions displayed with local utility \"version\")"
version >/dev/null 2>&1 && version =o $(_eat $0 $1) tr cut sort
set -o nounset

echo

FILE=${1-data1}
echo " Input file $FILE:"
cat $FILE

# |   Infrastructure END
# \
#  ---

echo
echo " Results from processing:"
tr ' ' '_' <$FILE |
tr ',-' ' ' |
cut -d" " -f1-5 |
sort --key=5,5 --key=4M,4 --key=3,3

exit 0

% ./s1 data2

(Versions displayed with local utility "version")
Linux 2.6.11-x1
GNU bash, version 2.05b.0(1)-release (i386-pc-linux-gnu)
tr (coreutils) 5.2.1
cut (coreutils) 5.2.1
sort (coreutils) 5.2.1

 Input file data2:
Bryant,Kobe4,23-sep-1979,L.A. California,USA,kobe@lakers.comk+1(310)87890
Sharapova,Maria,19-apr-1987,Brandenton FLorida,USA,admin@mariasharapova.com,+1(954)3387488
Bryant,Kobe1,23-aug-1978,L.A. California,USA,kobe@lakers.comk+1(310)87890
Spielberg,Steven,18-dec-1946,L.A.California,USA,steven@dreamworks.com,+1(389)89098
Harnois,Elisabeth,26-may-1979,Detroit Michigan,USA,liz@1treehill.net,+1(313)74564536
Ryan,Michelle,22-apr-1984,Enfield London,UK,mryan@nbc.com,+44(207)2988410
Belle,Camilla,2-oct-19886,Miami Florida,USA,cam_65@hollywood.org, +1(954)3790491
Gellar,Sarah Michelle,14-apr-1977,L.A. California,USA,smg@buffy.com,+1(213)3398848m
Underwood,Carrie,10-mar-1983,Checotah Oklahoma,USA,carrieunderwood@rca.com,+1(918)655423
Bryant,Kobe3,23-sep-1978,L.A. California,USA,kobe@lakers.comk+1(310)87890
Bryant,Kobe2,24-aug-1978,L.A. California,USA,kobe@lakers.comk+1(310)87890

 Results from processing:
Spielberg Steven 18 dec 1946
Gellar Sarah_Michelle 14 apr 1977
Bryant Kobe1 23 aug 1978
Bryant Kobe2 24 aug 1978
Bryant Kobe3 23 sep 1978
Harnois Elisabeth 26 may 1979
Bryant Kobe4 23 sep 1979
Underwood Carrie 10 mar 1983
Ryan Michelle 22 apr 1984
Sharapova Maria 19 apr 1987
Belle Camilla 2 oct 19886

Your requirements don't specify whether you want to sort by year first, but only by month. So this one liner should meet that requirement:

sort -t"," -k 3 -t"-" -k 2 -M birthdays.txt |awk -F"," '{print $1, $2, $3}'

cat file | awk -F"," '{print $1, $2, $3}' | sort -M -t"-" -k 2

Hi,

This one should be ok for you.

sed '
s/\([0-9]*\)-jan-\([0-9]*\)/\201\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-feb-\([0-9]*\)/\202\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-mar-\([0-9]*\)/\203\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-apr-\([0-9]*\)/\204\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-may-\([0-9]*\)/\205\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-jun-\([0-9]*\)/\206\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-jul-\([0-9]*\)/\207\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-aug-\([0-9]*\)/\208\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-sep-\([0-9]*\)/\209\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-oct-\([0-9]*\)/\210\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-nov-\([0-9]*\)/\211\1/;
s/\([0-9]*\)-dec-\([0-9]*\)/\212\1/
' filename > filename.temp
sort -t"," +2 filename.temp | cut -d"," -f1,2,3
rm filename.temp