Often you may want to use Bash to sort data by a specific column in a file.
You can use the following methods to do so:
Method 1: Sort by Column in Ascending Order
sort -k2 -n player_data.txt
This particular example will sort the rows of the text file named player_data.txt based on the values in column 2 in ascending (smallest to largest) order.
Method 2: Sort by Column in Descending Order
sort -k2 -nr player_data.txt
This particular example will sort the rows of the text file named player_data.txt based on the values in column 2 in descending (largest to smallest) order.
Here is what the various commands do:
- sort: Specifies that we would like to sort the rows of the file
- k: Stands for “key” and represents the column number to sort by, e.g. use k4 to sort by column 4
- n: Stands for “numeric sort” and specifies that the column should be interpreted as numbers and not text, otherwise a number like “11” would come before a number like “2”
- r: Stands for “reverse” and allows use to sort in reverse order
The following examples show how to use each method in practice with the following text file named player_data.txt that contains the information about the team name and points scored by various basketball players:
Example 1: Sort by Column in Ascending Order
We can use the following syntax to sort the rows of the file in ascending order based on the values in column 2 of the file:
sort -k2 -n player_data.txt
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
Notice that the rows are now sorted in ascending order based on the values in column 2 of the file.
Example 2: Sort by Column in Descending Order
We can use the following syntax to sort the rows of the file in descending order based on the values in column 2 of the file:
sort -k2 -nr player_data.txt
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
Notice that the rows are now sorted in descending order based on the values in column 2 of the file.
Related Tutorials
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Bash:
Bash: How to Count Number of Unique Lines in File
Bash: How to Count Number of Characters in String
Bash: How to List All Files in Folder by Size
