Hey everybody

I need some help on how to order the data in file such as a file have first name last name and city and i would like to order them to in the same order by using sed

thanks alot for your time

why not use "sort" to sort?

Post some sample input and expected output.

Also, what have you tried so far ?

Hey ..
here is a sample
and i would like to sort it to order it to be
username then the,shell, after that home directory
rootbash:x:0:1:0000-Admin(0000):/:/usr/local/bin/bash
rootnt:x:0:1:0000-Admin(0000):/:/usr/local/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:0000-Admin(0000):/:/usr/local/bin/bash
nobody:x:60001:60001:uid no body:/:/usr/local/bin/bash
noaccess:x:60002:60002:uid no access:/:/usr/local/bin/bash

thank you ...

I would prefer awk for this:

    awk -F ':' '{printf("%s:%s:%s\n", $1, $7, $6)}' datafile.txt

    sed 's/^\([^:]*\):[^:]*:[^:]*:[^:]*:[^:]*:\([^:]*\):\([^:]*\)/\1:\3:\2/g' datafile.txt

Why wouldnt you just use cut command ?????????????

thank you everybody very much
for your time