Search Results

@Scrutinizer . With just "sort" the hyphens throw the order.

Using a bit more data to make the problem more visible.

Original file:

MARTINEZ---PAUL
--DUPOND---EDDY
--DURANDJACQUES...

I am totally unsure now lol. I had sorted it without any parameter too and saw output was sorted as OP wanted it, as you stated it. Anyway I was not sure if there could be a constellation where the...

Hi Zaxxon, I was looking at the question but could not understand the reason. Wouldn't this be equivalent to plain:
sort infile

No need to separate the keys. Sort to "dictionary" order.

sort -d filename

--DUPOND--ALAIN
--DUPOND---EDDY
--DURANDJACQUES
MARTINEZ---PAUL

Yes - I deleted my answer since it was somewhat awkward and I come back with a better solution if not already someone else did ;)

$ awk -F\* 'BEGIN {OFS = FS} NR == FNR { A[$0]=1; next } A[$4] { X=$4; $4=$3; $3=X }1 ' 1.tmp 2.tmp
1*TEST1*111**LA
2*TEST2**112*LA
3*TEST3*222**LA
4*TEST4**333*LA
5*TEST5*555**LA


Use nawk...