UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I saw some stuff in the search results on this - but nothing specific.....

I have a significant number of files (c. 300) which are output from a large process that I run. These are compared with a 'baselined' set of files - so I can quickly see if there are differences based on the sizes of the files.

I want to sort the directory into filesize...and not by number of lines. I need byte size to confirm differences.

I've thought about awk, wc -c, I've looked at sort -n ....and I've looked at the ls options...but I cant seem to get a combination to work for me.

ideas? And Yeah I realise I could cut the filesize from the ls and sort by that....but there must be a simpler way....

(Oh and I work with SunOS 5.6 and typically use a bash shell).

try:

ls -al | sort -rn +4

this does a reverse numerical sort by file size. hope this helps.

Spot on - thanks.