Sorting multiple keys with Unix sort

Question

I have potentially large files that need to be sorted by 1-n keys   Some of these keys might be numeric and some of them might not be   This is a fixed-width columnar file so there are no delimiters   Is there a good way to do this with Unix sort   With one key it is as simple as using  -n    I have read the man page and searched Google briefly  but didn t find a good example   How would I go about accomplishing this   Note   I have ruled out Perl because of the file size potential   It would be a last resort

User · Answer

The -k option is what you want   -k 1 4 1 5n -k 1 14 1 15n   Would use character positions 4-5 in the first field  it s all one field for fixed width  and sort numerically as the first key   The second key would be characters 14-15 in the first field also    edit   Example  all I have is DOS cygwin handy    dir    cygwin bin sort exe -k 1 4 1 5n -k 1 40 1 60r   for the data   12 10 2008  01 10 PM         1 564 990 outfile txt   Sorts the directory listing by month number  pos 4-5  numerically  and then by filename  pos 40-60  in reverse   Since there are no tabs  it s all field 1 to sort

User · Answer

I believe in your case something like  sort -t  -k1 1 1 4 -k1 5 1 7      lt inputfile   will work better    is the field separator  make sure it is a character that appears nowhere  then your input is considered as consisting of one column   Edit  apparently clintp already gave a similar answer  sorry  As he points out  the flags  n  and  r  can be added to every -k     option

User · Answer

I believe in your case something like  sort -t  -k1 1 1 4 -k1 5 1 7      lt inputfile   will work better    is the field separator  make sure it is a character that appears nowhere  then your input is considered as consisting of one column   Edit  apparently clintp already gave a similar answer  sorry  As he points out  the flags  n  and  r  can be added to every -k     option

User · Answer

I just want to add some tips  when you using sort   be careful about your locale that effects the order of the key comparison  I usually explicitly use LC ALL C to make locale what I want

User · Answer

I believe in your case something like  sort -t  -k1 1 1 4 -k1 5 1 7      lt inputfile   will work better    is the field separator  make sure it is a character that appears nowhere  then your input is considered as consisting of one column   Edit  apparently clintp already gave a similar answer  sorry  As he points out  the flags  n  and  r  can be added to every -k     option

User · Answer

I believe in your case something like  sort -t  -k1 1 1 4 -k1 5 1 7      lt inputfile   will work better    is the field separator  make sure it is a character that appears nowhere  then your input is considered as consisting of one column   Edit  apparently clintp already gave a similar answer  sorry  As he points out  the flags  n  and  r  can be added to every -k     option

User · Answer

Take care though   If you want to sort the file primarily by field 3  and secondarily by field 2 you want this   sort -k 3 3 -k 2 2  lt  inputfile   Not this  sort -k 3 -k 2  lt  inputfile which sorts the file by the string from the beginning of field 3 to the end of line  which is potentially unique    -k  --key POS1  POS2      start a key at POS1  origin 1   end it at POS2                            default end of line

User · Answer

Take care though   If you want to sort the file primarily by field 3  and secondarily by field 2 you want this   sort -k 3 3 -k 2 2  lt  inputfile   Not this  sort -k 3 -k 2  lt  inputfile which sorts the file by the string from the beginning of field 3 to the end of line  which is potentially unique    -k  --key POS1  POS2      start a key at POS1  origin 1   end it at POS2                            default end of line

User · Answer

The -k option is what you want   -k 1 4 1 5n -k 1 14 1 15n   Would use character positions 4-5 in the first field  it s all one field for fixed width  and sort numerically as the first key   The second key would be characters 14-15 in the first field also    edit   Example  all I have is DOS cygwin handy    dir    cygwin bin sort exe -k 1 4 1 5n -k 1 40 1 60r   for the data   12 10 2008  01 10 PM         1 564 990 outfile txt   Sorts the directory listing by month number  pos 4-5  numerically  and then by filename  pos 40-60  in reverse   Since there are no tabs  it s all field 1 to sort

User · Answer

Use the -k option  or --key POS1  POS2     It can appear multiple times and each key can have global options  such as n for numeric sort

User · Answer

The -k option is what you want   -k 1 4 1 5n -k 1 14 1 15n   Would use character positions 4-5 in the first field  it s all one field for fixed width  and sort numerically as the first key   The second key would be characters 14-15 in the first field also    edit   Example  all I have is DOS cygwin handy    dir    cygwin bin sort exe -k 1 4 1 5n -k 1 40 1 60r   for the data   12 10 2008  01 10 PM         1 564 990 outfile txt   Sorts the directory listing by month number  pos 4-5  numerically  and then by filename  pos 40-60  in reverse   Since there are no tabs  it s all field 1 to sort

User · Answer

The -k option is what you want   -k 1 4 1 5n -k 1 14 1 15n   Would use character positions 4-5 in the first field  it s all one field for fixed width  and sort numerically as the first key   The second key would be characters 14-15 in the first field also    edit   Example  all I have is DOS cygwin handy    dir    cygwin bin sort exe -k 1 4 1 5n -k 1 40 1 60r   for the data   12 10 2008  01 10 PM         1 564 990 outfile txt   Sorts the directory listing by month number  pos 4-5  numerically  and then by filename  pos 40-60  in reverse   Since there are no tabs  it s all field 1 to sort

User · Answer

Use the -k option  or --key POS1  POS2     It can appear multiple times and each key can have global options  such as n for numeric sort

User · Answer

Note that is may also be desired to stabilize the sort with the -s switch  so that equally ranked lines maintain their original relative order in the output too

User · Answer

Here is one to sort various columns in a csv file by numeric and dictionary order  columns 5 and after as dictionary order    test gt sort -t  -k1 1n -k2 2n -k3 3d -k4 4n -k5d  sort csv 1 10 b 22 Ga 2 2 b 20 F 2 2 b 22 Ga 2 2 c 19 Ga 2 2 c 19 Gb hi 2 2 c 19 Gb hj 2 3 a 9 C    test gt cat sort csv 2 3 a 9 C 2 2 b 20 F 2 2 c 19 Gb hj 2 2 c 19 Gb hi 2 2 c 19 Ga 2 2 b 22 Ga 1 10 b 22 Ga   Note the -k1 1n means numeric starting at column 1 and ending at column 1  If I had done below  it would have concatenated column 1 and 2 making 1 10 sorted as 110    test gt sort -t  -k1 2n -k3 3 -k4 4n -k5d  sort csv 2 2 b 20 F 2 2 b 22 Ga 2 2 c 19 Ga 2 2 c 19 Gb hi 2 2 c 19 Gb hj 2 3 a 9 C 1 10 b 22 Ga

User · Answer

I just want to add some tips  when you using sort   be careful about your locale that effects the order of the key comparison  I usually explicitly use LC ALL C to make locale what I want

User · Answer

Use the -k option  or --key POS1  POS2     It can appear multiple times and each key can have global options  such as n for numeric sort

User · Answer

Here is one to sort various columns in a csv file by numeric and dictionary order  columns 5 and after as dictionary order    test gt sort -t  -k1 1n -k2 2n -k3 3d -k4 4n -k5d  sort csv 1 10 b 22 Ga 2 2 b 20 F 2 2 b 22 Ga 2 2 c 19 Ga 2 2 c 19 Gb hi 2 2 c 19 Gb hj 2 3 a 9 C    test gt cat sort csv 2 3 a 9 C 2 2 b 20 F 2 2 c 19 Gb hj 2 2 c 19 Gb hi 2 2 c 19 Ga 2 2 b 22 Ga 1 10 b 22 Ga   Note the -k1 1n means numeric starting at column 1 and ending at column 1  If I had done below  it would have concatenated column 1 and 2 making 1 10 sorted as 110    test gt sort -t  -k1 2n -k3 3 -k4 4n -k5d  sort csv 2 2 b 20 F 2 2 b 22 Ga 2 2 c 19 Ga 2 2 c 19 Gb hi 2 2 c 19 Gb hj 2 3 a 9 C 1 10 b 22 Ga

User · Answer

Use the -k option  or --key POS1  POS2     It can appear multiple times and each key can have global options  such as n for numeric sort

User · Answer

Note that is may also be desired to stabilize the sort with the -s switch  so that equally ranked lines maintain their original relative order in the output too

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