doubt in sort command!!!

wat is the option used in sort cmnd to sort based on a particular key???

xxx 23 63
yyy 24 72
zzz 25 70
aaa 27 75

$sort -n student

xxx 23 63
zzz 25 70
yyy 24 72
aaa 27 75

here the sorting is done based on field 3 contents defaultly,,,can we change this???if so,,,how???

sort -k1 student
this wud sort records based on the 1st field values

sort -k1n -k2 student
this sorts student using 2nd column values as major key and 1st as minor key

sort -k1n -k2 student
What does dis exactly do? Can u explain dis wit an example pls?

check ur file content.. by default it ll sort first column..

if u want to use '|' as delimiter, try this command.

Code:

$ sort -t '|' -k2 student

cat student
akalya 21 f
shiva 22 m
deva 23 m
maithreyi 22 f

sort -k1 student
akalya 21 f
deva 23 m
maithreyi 22 f
shiva 22 m

sort -k3 -k1n student
akalya 21 f
maithreyi 22 f
shiva 22 m
deva 23 m

@sarada it initially sorts using field3 as key then uses this output to sort fields based on field 2 values

hope u get it!!

thanks to all!!!its workin!!

@akalya : Thanks.. got it

hey

[336474@oracleclient ~]$ cat student
ganesh|21|07|m|
dinesh|22|05|m|
usha|23|42|f|
malthi|22|35|f|
preeti|22|12|f|
paru|22|40|f|
madhu|22|33|m|

[336474@oracleclient ~]$ sort -t '|' -k4n -k2 student
ganesh|21|07|m|
dinesh|22|05|m|
preeti|22|12|f|
madhu|22|33|m|
malthi|22|35|f|
paru|22|40|f|
usha|23|42|f|

i wanted to sort using second col as major key and 4th col as minor key!

but its sorting 2nd as major and 3rd col as minor key how come its possible?? or is the syntax wrong?

try this command,

Code:

$ sort -t '|' -k2n -k4 student

tnx! christ!