Sorting multiple columns

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

We have a requirement of need to sort a file based on fields 1,3 and 4. I tried with sort command however it is not giving expected output, can we achieve any other way? Please let me know ASAP.

File
a e w a
a b a a
a a d g
a a h h
c d a e
a a a w

Output
a b a a
a a a w
a a d g
a a h h
a e w a
c d a e

Thanks,
Naga:)

2

a turnaround:

echo "a e w a
a b a a
a a d g
a a h h
c d a e
a a a w" | awk ' { print $1, $3, $4, $2 }' | sort | awk '{ print $1, $4, $2, $3}'

output:

a b a a
a a a w
a a d g
a a h h
a e w a
c d a e
3 
sort +0 -1 +2 -3 +3 -4 file
4 
sort -k1,1 -k3,3 -k4,4 file
5

It works great. Thanks frans, Franklin52, alister for your help.

Thanks,
Naga :slight_smile: