UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have a file like the following:

Code:

/vol/release
/vol/listing
/vol/trees7
/vol/toperforce
/vol/trees10
/vol/trees2
/vol/wtrain

I have tried the following:

Code:

cat file | sort -t/ -dfk3.1 -t/ -k3.6n

That did not work. What I want to do is have the file sorted so that the first character is used in the sort and then after the list is assembled alphabetically, the 6th character of the third column is used in a sort. So the file should look like this:

Code:

/vol/listing
/vol/release
/vol/toperforce
/vol/trees2
/vol/trees7
/vol/trees10
/vol/wtrain

What keeps happening is I can get the column sorted alphabetically or numberically by the 6th digit of the third column but not by both. Is this even possible? I'd like it to arrange everything alphabetically and then put the trees so that trees2, trees7 and trees10 are in numerical order. I've also tried to use cut to chop off the "vol" part and just use one column but this did not work either. Any suggestions?

Try:

Code:

sort -t/ -k3.1,3.5 -k3.6,3n file

Thanks this works great! I can't believe how much this command can do. I'll have to study all the options further.