how to sort a file

tao · #1 (**permalink**) 03-21-2002

Hi,

i want to sort a file by column 2, 3, 10 and 4(in this order), can anybody help me? thanks a lot.

#2 (**permalink**) 03-23-2002

Check out the sort command ( $ man sort ) - especially the sort key options. You can sort on position or on a character separator. Multiple keys are allowed but this would take some thinking to get the order correct.

#3 (**permalink**) 03-24-2002

When you say columns, I assume you mean columnized data separated by white space, instead of character positions. If so, this should work:

Code:

sort -k2b,2 -k3b,3 -k10b,10 -k4b,4 myfile

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