Meaning of "b" modifier in "sort" command Post: 302493342

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Meaning of "b" modifier in "sort" command Post 302493342 by wjssj on Wednesday 2nd of February 2011 12:00:15 PM

02-02-2011

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Meaning of "b" modifier in "sort" command

I need to sort the following file by the rhdiskpower devices in the last column:

HTML Code:

Total_MB  Free_MB   OS_MB  Name           Failgroup      Library  Label  UDID  Product  Redund   Path
    1024      851    1024  OCRVOT1_0000   OCRVOT1_0000   System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower1
    1024      853    1024  OCRVOT1_0002   OCRVOT1_0002   System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower11
    1024      855    1024  OCRVOT1_0001   OCRVOT1_0001   System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower10
    1024      884    1024  OCRVOT1_0003   OCRVOT1_0003   System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower2
    1024      884    1024  OCRVOT1_0005   OCRVOT1_0005   System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower9
    1024      885    1024  OCRVOT1_0004   OCRVOT1_0004   System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower8
    8192     7563    8192  DBFCRED2_0000  DBFCRED2_0000  System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower12
    8192     7564    8192  DBFCRED1_0000  DBFCRED1_0000  System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower3
    8192     7568    8192  DBFCRED1_0001  DBFCRED1_0001  System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower4
    8192     7569    8192  DBFCRED2_0001  DBFCRED2_0001  System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower13
   65536    65441   65536  DBFCFLR1_0000  DBFCFLR1_0000  System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower7
  409600   126488  409600  DBFCDAT1_0002  DBFCDAT1_0002  System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower5
  409600   126492  409600  DBFCDAT1_0000  DBFCDAT1_0000  System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower14
  409600   126504  409600  DBFCDAT1_0001  DBFCDAT1_0001  System                         UNKNOWN  /dev/rhdiskpower15

After spending more time than I care to admit, I finally was able to do it with the following sort command:

Code:

sort -k 8.17bn <name of file>

My question is this: The "b" was the critical piece to making this sort work. Without the "b", it sorted numerically by the first column. I've read the sort man pages, and it says that the "b" ignores leading blank characters. Any idea how that relates to what I was trying to do here?

Last edited by wjssj; 02-02-2011 at 01:15 PM..

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

pvck

PVCK(8) 						      System Manager's Manual							   PVCK(8)

NAME

       pvck - check physical volume metadata

SYNOPSIS

       pvck [-d|--debug] [-h|--help] [-v|--verbose] [--labelsector] PhysicalVolume [PhysicalVolume...]

DESCRIPTION

       pvck checks physical volume LVM metadata for consistency.

OPTIONS

       See lvm for common options.

       --labelsector sector
	      By  default, 4 sectors of PhysicalVolume are scanned for an LVM label, starting at sector 0.  This parameter allows you to specify a
	      different starting sector for the scan and is useful for recovery situations.  For example, suppose the partition table is corrupted
	      or  lost	on  /dev/sda, but you suspect there was an LVM partition at approximately 100 MB.  This area of the disk may be scanned by
	      using the --labelsector parameter with a value of 204800 (100 * 1024 * 1024 / 512 = 204800):

	      pvck --labelsector 204800 /dev/sda

	      Note that a script can be used with --labelsector to automate the process of finding LVM labels.

SEE ALSO

       lvm(8), pvcreate(8), pvscan(8) vgck(8)

Sistina Software UK					 LVM TOOLS 2.02.95(2) (2012-03-06)						   PVCK(8)