Shell Programming and Scripting

#!/bin/bash

while true
do
        for N in 0 1 2 3 4 5
        do
                read A || break
                echo "$A"
        done | sort -r -t ';' -k 3 | head -n 1
        read A || break
done < data

#!/bin/sh

# Loop until we tell it to stop
while true
do
        # Loop 5 times.  Each loop reads and writes one line.
        # We pipe it's output through sort, breaking fields on ; and 
        # sorting on the third field, and sort backwards.
        # Then we throw away everything but the first line.
        for N in 0 1 2 3 4
        do
                # Try to read a line.  If it fails, quit.
                read A || break
                # Print the line.
                echo "$A"
        done | sort -r -t ';' -k 3 | head -n 1
        # Read and ignore the lineful of dashes.  quit if that fails.
        read A || break
done < data

sort -k1,3 -k5,5r in-file |sort -mus -k1,3
or
sort -t\; -k1,1 -k3,3r in-file |sort -t\; -mus -k1,1