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Justin
Asked: 2014-12-04 07:00:09 +0800 CST

Sorting a file alphabetically by last name only

  • 772

I'm interested in sorting a text file that has entries with the First name and Last name in that order

[Ex]

John Doe

I'm interested in sorting the list by LAST name only. Is this a job for sed or awk? Can I modify the sortcommand to sort by the second word or LAST name only?

sort

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Simply

    sort -k2 < your_file > out_file

    -k specify the sort key; by default the field number where field are separated by blanks.

    From man sort: 

      -k, --key=KEYDEF
          sort via a key; KEYDEF gives location and type

    KEYDEF is F[.C][OPTS][,F[.C][OPTS]] for start and stop position, where F is a field number and C a character position in the field; both are origin 1, and the stop position defaults to the line's end. If neither -t nor -b is in effect, characters in a field are counted from the beginning of the preceding whitespace. OPTS is one or more single-let‐ ter ordering options [bdfgiMhnRrV], which override global ordering options for that key. If no key is given, use the entire line as the key.

    Example: 

    [romano:~/tmp] % cat test.txt
a a
b c
d r
k a
t 6
[romano:~/tmp] % sort -k2 < test.txt
t 6
a a
k a
b c
d r
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