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Full Discussion: Need to sort text keeping first line always first
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Need to sort text keeping first line always first Post 302890956 by Don Cragun on Sunday 2nd of March 2014 08:05:41 PM
Old 03-02-2014
Quote:
Originally Posted by lsatenstein
I guess I was bleary eyed last night when I indicated that everything was ok, but ....
Sorting for columns 2 through 4 works fine.

How do I make the sort work for column 1?
Do I need to add a leading | symbol before column 1?

Please refer to the list I posted yesterday, a few messages back.
Is the problem me or the sort's limitations?
I assume that you're referring to the following which is from message #8 in this thread:
Quote:
This is the top part of my file. Notice the !!^HHost= (^H=Backspace)


Code:
1to8.txt                         |20140223 0056|25d55ad283aa400af464c76d713c07ad|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23/md5-c
alpha.txt                        |20140223 0056|83e065ac9ed97eca51391c20e9671373|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23/md5-c
a.txt                            |20140223 0056|933222b19ff3e7ea5f65517ea1f7d57e|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23/md5-c
crc32.c                          |20140223 0056|4d7a5dbb246898ff9d3ba19c0ded7f5b|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
crc32.h                          |20140223 0056|c15674694592358889120712db73be69|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
crc32.o                          |20140301 1912|10a49aede5f82d00205c1f89a8931731|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
DATE1                            |20140223 0056|e0167034133516d3ad5d61a09bae8156|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
DATE2                            |20140223 0056|e606fe0237c786174d2087090f81644a|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
daycalc.c                        |20140223 0056|1dd882b48e5c156748aba7fb38dbba51|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
dirdepth                         |20140301 1912|9f2ff1bd8b133ca0de8d124ad7d761d2|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
dirdepth.c                       |20140223 0056|a7c3f1c02245aec9a1b651e11018ff82|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
dirent.h                         |20140223 0056|1906fd554bf036fdf6ffd0b054ca321d|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
empty.txt                        |20140223 0056|d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23/md5-c
gcc.txt                          |20140223 0056|b8917c1a087abbf74f0294dad9cbf698|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
!! Host=Fedora20.Bachelor           |          |                       scan from| ^H/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
inih_r27.tar                     |20140223 0056|a8da6db331c8fe638cbb8c6940ce303e|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
inih_r28Dec16.00.tar             |20140223 0056|6fe6356f0ba2e501c2713958f119d493|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
itcrftn.c                        |20140223 0056|b1f1444cfdc35b6427ad3b002a176e9f|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
log.txt                          |20140223 0056|187c3fdbde0febf71257f0c0da9e21e7|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23/md5-c
makefile                         |20140223 0056|26955e927da56d1343af738a247b87e1|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23/md5-c
makefile                         |20140301 1912|02c8266eb8c3d3b52eabb30378ef9895|/home/leslie/Development/scandirFeb23
md5

Note the two sections marked in red. Your description of the sample input shows !!\bHost= (where \b is the backspace character) but the data in the file shows !! Host= (with a space instead of a backspace). Note that if that file did contain a backspace before Host= instead of a space, then sorting that file using the command:
Code:
sort -fd input_file

would produce output exactly matching the input you showed us.

Please upload the exact sample input_file you're using, show us the exact command line you're using to sort that file, the exact output you're getting from that command line, and the exact output you're trying to get.

Unless you want exclamation points in the header in your output, please use a space followed by a backspace as the 1st two characters on the header line instead of two exclamation points followed by a space.
 

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