UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,
I've two list files and two corresponding data files which looks like:

list1.txt
list1.data.txt
Similarly:
list2.txt
list2.data.txt
What I need is merging two list files into one list file and two data files into one data file in an Interleaving manner. Expected output would be:
merged.list.txt
merged.data.txt
Many thanks for your help.

Why awk? What have you tried?

awk - because in some previous example I found it simple, easy to use and re usability in other similar problems.
what I naively tried e.g. 'list.data.txt' seems working ok.

Code:

 paste <(awk '/^>/ { printf("\n%s\t",$0);next;} {printf("%s",$0);} END {printf("\n");}' list1.data.txt ) \
 <(awk '/^>/ { printf("\n%s\t",$0);next;} {printf("%s",$0);} END {printf("\n");}' list2.data.txt ) | tr "\t" "\n"

However, problem with above awk code is:
If the data is not in the same order as in the 'list.txt' file then the output will be wrong.

So I am looking for some code that will actually read 'list.txt' file and will write the data in that order.

So you want it sorted by the last number? Can that have more than one digit? And, if equal numbers, the order doesn't seem to matter (x_name before p_name)?