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I am trying to sort a file called "Team_James" numerically by the last column, and then I would like to save the output as a new file called "file3".

I tried the command sort Team_James | > s3, but I don't know how to do it, and I don't even know what -k is! I have been looking everywhere on the Internet.

What am I doing wrong?

Here what the output of my command cat Team_James

Pam Murray      4    657-4324  18
Jim Brown       8    467-8743  22
Jim Roberts     17   728-8295  9
Joyce Murray    7    235-1432  13
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  • try sort -k 4,4n Team_James >file3
    – steve
    Oct 3, 2018 at 21:25
  • Hello @Anonymous what is the expected output?
    – user88036
    Oct 3, 2018 at 21:25
  • Hello @Goro trying to get the last field into numeric order Oct 3, 2018 at 21:28
  • Sorry @steve but it didn't work. Trying to get the last field in numeric order. Oct 3, 2018 at 21:31
  • 1
    Might you have a player with a middle name listed?
    – Jeff Schaller
    Oct 3, 2018 at 21:38

1 Answer 1

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Looking at the table, in column#1 there are spaces between first name and last name. This means, sort will consider the first and last names two separate columns. As a result, the last column of the input table is #5. The command below, assume that all the names provided in column #1 are first/last and there are no middle names.

cat Team_James | sort -s -n -k 5.1 > file3
Jim Roberts     17   728-8295  9
Joyce Murray    7    235-1432  13
Pam Murray      4    657-4324  18
Jim Brown       8    467-8743  22
-n, --numeric-sort   compare according to string numerical value  
-s, --stable         stabilize sort by disabling last-resort comparison  
-k, --key=POS1[,POS2]  
      start a key at POS1 (origin 1), end it at POS2 (default end of  
      line).  See POS syntax above.  
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  • Yes, But once I've done that I need to send it to file3 Oct 3, 2018 at 21:34
  • @Anonymous what do you mean send it to file3? By email? or save it in a new file called file3? If yo mean save the output as file3 please see the edits. if by email I can revise again ;-)
    – user88036
    Oct 3, 2018 at 21:37
  • 1
    Thank you for solving the problem I was stuck at this for a while. Oct 3, 2018 at 21:40
  • You are welcome ;-) see k explaination
    – user88036
    Oct 3, 2018 at 21:42

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