Shell Programming and Scripting

Your problem statement says sort -k isn't working, but you're not showing us what you're trying to sort. Please show us the output of the command:

Code:

/usr/bin/unzip -qql AAA.ZIP

Then show us the output of the command:

Code:

/usr/bin/unzip -qql AAA.ZIP |sort -k12 -t~

and the command:

Code:

/usr/bin/unzip -qql AAA.ZIP |sort -t~

If what you showed as the contents of FIRST.report.out is the output from the unzip and SECOND.report.out is the output from feeding FIRST.report.out through

Code:

sort -k12 -t~

then the output is correct. Your primary sort key is field 12 which is "20120808" in every input line. So, sort processes the entire line as a sort key to resolve the ambiguity and finds the first differences in the second field. It has correctly sorted AT1 before FUN and FUN before PRE. Since the last two line match on the PRE, sort continues looking for differences and finally sorts the last two lines so GuinE comes before MooreBe. Since field 12 is identical in every record, the output from sort -k12 and sort without -k12 is identical. What are we missing?

Ok, then that means something is different per record in each array.
Can you for testing write the data from each array to a file and then sort the files and then do the diff?

I put your example data(below) into two files, sorted the whole records and diff reported them as the same:

Code:

1) FIRST.report.out (what's inside the ZIP file)
JGS-Memphis~AT1~Pre-Test~X-BanhT~JGMDTV387~6~P~1100~HR24-500~033072053326~20120808~240914.XML 
JGS-Memphis~PRE~DTV_PREP~X-GuinE~JGMDTV069~6~P~1100~H24-700~033081107519~20120808~240914.XML 
JGS-Memphis~PRE~DTV_PREP~X-MooreBe~JGM98745~40~P~1100~H21-200~029264526103~20120808~240914.XML 
JGS-Memphis~FUN~Pre-Test~X-RossA~jgmdtv168~2~P~1100~H21-200~029415655926~20120808~240914.XML
2) SECOND.report.out (what's inside the ZIP's control file)
JGS-Memphis~AT1~Pre-Test~X-BanhT~JGMDTV387~6~P~1100~HR24-500~033072053326~20120808~240914.XML 
JGS-Memphis~FUN~Pre-Test~X-RossA~jgmdtv168~2~P~1100~H21-200~029415655926~20120808~240914.XML 
JGS-Memphis~PRE~DTV_PREP~X-GuinE~JGMDTV069~6~P~1100~H24-700~033081107519~20120808~240914.XML 
JGS-Memphis~PRE~DTV_PREP~X-MooreBe~JGM98745~40~P~1100~H21-200~029264526103~20120808~240914.XML