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I want to sort csv as follow, what I want is

  1. sort by column 2
  2. if column is the same, sort by column 3(numerically)

here is what I do:

$ sort  -t","  -k2 -nk3  /tmp/test.csv
55b64670abb9c0663e77de84,525e3bfad07b4377dc142a24:9999,0.081032
5510b33ec720d80086865312,525e3bfad07b4377dc142a24:9999,0.081033
55aca6a1d2e33dc888ddeb31,525e3bf7d07b4377d31429d2:2,0.081034
55aca6a1d2e33dc888ddeb31,525e3bf7d07b4377d31429d2:2,0.081034
5514548ec720d80086bfec46,525e3bfad07b4377dc142a24:9999,0.081035
551d4e21c720d80086084f45,525e3bfad07b4377dc142a24:9999,0.081036
557bff5276bd54a8df83268a,525e3bfad07b4377dc142a24:9999,0.081036

this result is strange, it sorts by the column three first, then by column 2

David
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roger
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  • Possible duplicate of [Sorting multiple keys with Unix sort](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/357560/sorting-multiple-keys-with-unix-sort) –  Jan 15 '16 at 11:04
  • [Second answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/6709427/707650) of the duplicate has the required solution. –  Jan 15 '16 at 11:04
  • Does this answer your question? [Sort CSV file by column priority using the "sort" command](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9471101/sort-csv-file-by-column-priority-using-the-sort-command) – kvantour Nov 03 '19 at 11:05

3 Answers3

6

This command seems to yield correct output:

sort -t"," -k2,2 -k3,3n /tmp/test.csv

I use comma to constrain order to that column only, and use the numeric (-n) switch to last character in the third column.

It yields:

55aca6a1d2e33dc888ddeb31,525e3bf7d07b4377d31429d2:2,0.081034
55aca6a1d2e33dc888ddeb31,525e3bf7d07b4377d31429d2:2,0.081034
55b64670abb9c0663e77de84,525e3bfad07b4377dc142a24:9999,0.081032
5510b33ec720d80086865312,525e3bfad07b4377dc142a24:9999,0.081033
5514548ec720d80086bfec46,525e3bfad07b4377dc142a24:9999,0.081035
551d4e21c720d80086084f45,525e3bfad07b4377dc142a24:9999,0.081036
557bff5276bd54a8df83268a,525e3bfad07b4377dc142a24:9999,0.081036
Birei
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0

Sort will work sorting data on csv & txt file , it will print the output on console

-t says columns are delimited by '|' , -k1 -k2 says that-- it will sort te data by column 1 & then by 2

$ sort -t '|' -k1 -k2 <INPUT_FILE>

For storing the result in output file use following command 

$ sort -t '|' -k1 -k2 <INPUT_FILE> -o <OUTPUTFILE>

If you wann do it with ignoring header line then use following command 

(head -n1 INPUT_FILE && sort <(tail -n+2 INPUT_FILE)) > OUTPUT_FILE

head -n1 INPUT_FILE which will print only the first line of your file i.e. header

& This special tail syntax gets your file from second line up to EOF.

Jitendra Nandre
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While the sort command has some hacks to partially handle CSV files, it won't handle all CSV format features. csvsort is a great option:

csvsort -c 2,3 /tmp/test.csv
jtpereyda
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