linuxbashsortingcommand

How to sort a file, based on its numerical values for a field?

Example file.txt:

  100 foo
  2 bar
  300 tuu

When using sort -k 1,1 file.txt, the order of lines will not change, though we are expecting :

  2 bar
  100 foo
  300 tuu

How to sort a field consisting of numbers based on the absolute numerical value?

Solution

  • Take a peek at the man page for sort...

       -n, --numeric-sort
          compare according to string numerical value

    So here is an example...

    sort -n filename