Sunday, July 7, 2013

Ubuntu: How to sort file contents using command ?


In this article, I will share my understanding of sort command with some examples. One important point to notice is that the file contents must be on separate line. If file contains only single line then we are not able to observe the effect of sort command. Before jumping directly to examples, here are some of its variations

To sort file contents                             : sort filename.txt
To sort according to column contents   : sort –k (column number) filename
To sort in reverse order                       : sort –r filename
To remove duplicates while sorting      : sort –u filename
  •  Sorting numeric contents
           Suppose file contains only numeric data then file contents are sorted in ascending order of integer values as shown below.
$ cat file
015
004
016
009
003
018
002
020

$ sort file
002
003
004
009
016
018
020
  •   Sorting alphabetic contents
            Suppose file contains only alphabetic data then file contents are sorted alphabetically as shown below.
$ cat file
Ashish Gaigole
Siyaram Vishwakarma
Deepak Jaiswal
Dashrath Sharma

$ sort file
Ashish Gaigole
Dashrath Sharma
Deepak Jaiswal
Siyaram Vishwakarma
  •  Sorting alpha-numeric contents
           In case file has both numeric and alphabetic data then first all numeric data is sorted in ascending order followed by alphabetic data.
$ cat file
Ashish Gaigole
Siyaram Vishwakarma
Deepak Jaiswal
Dashrath Sharma
015
016
004
009

$ sort file
004
009
015
016
Ashish Gaigole
Dashrath Sharma
Deepak Jaiswal
Siyaram Vishwakarma
  •  Sorting file contents according to particular column values
$ cat file
Ashish Gaigole 016 F-42
Siyaram Vishwakarma 015 F-43
Deepak Jaiswal 009 F-44
Dashrath Sharma 004 F-41

$ sort –k 3 file  : file is sorted according to third column in file.
Dashrath Sharma 004 F-44
Deepak Jaiswal 009 F-41
Siyaram Vishwakarma 015 F-43
Ashish Gaigole 016 F-42

$ sort –k 4 file  : file is sorted according to fourth column in file.
Deepak Jaiswal 009 F-41
Ashish Gaigole 016 F-42
Siyaram Vishwakarma 015 F-43
Dashrath Sharma 004 F-44