sort file based one colum and group by another column

Question

I have a file of three columns:

1   A     0.5
2   B     0.7
3   A     10
4   C     4
5   B     4

I want to sort the file by increasing order of column 3 and group by column 2

I know how to sort only based on the 3rd column :

sort -k3,3 file

But can we group by the second column ?

What do mean when you say "group"? Do you need to retain field 2 file order? If not sort -k2,2 -k3,3n file should do — iruvar, May 20, 2015 at 12:27
yes your command does what I want thanks you can add the answer @1_CR — AWRAM, May 20, 2015 at 12:31

aleksandr barakin · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-23 20:43:04Z

1

sort by the third column, then by the second:

$ sort -k3,3 file | sort -k 2,2

output:

1   A   0.5
3   A   10
2   B   0.7
5   B   4
4   C   4

answered Nov 23, 2016 at 20:43

aleksandr barakin

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cuonglm · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-20 13:05:23Z

0

I see there is no answer, so my suggestion

sort -k2,2 -nk3,3 file

cuonglm

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answered May 20, 2015 at 12:47

Artem

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n before k in -nk3,3 is a global option (equivalent to -n -k3,3), which makes the second column sort fail. You should use -k3,3n (or -k3n,3) instead.
– Nicolas Melay
Jul 30, 2019 at 15:24

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2 Answers 2