sort users begining with each letter of the alphabet from greatest to least occurence

nadeemr · 06-10-2007, 07:49 PM

hi i was just wondering how to sort users beginning with each letter of the alphabet from greatest to least occurrence?

i have something like this :

sort -t, -k1,2n -k4,5rn /etc/passwd

but how would i specify how to determine which letter of the alphabet is being called?

my output should be something like :
c => 3
b => 2
d => 2
a => 1
...
z => 0

some help would be much appreciated

ghostdog74 · 06-10-2007, 08:47 PM

Code:

awk -F ":" '
{ 
  fchar = substr($1,0,1)
  ++cnt[fchar]
}
END{
  for (i in cnt) {
     print i "=>" cnt[i] | "sort"
  }
}' /etc/passwd

nadeemr · 06-10-2007, 09:09 PM

thanx a lot ghostdog74 works perfectly!

nadeemr · 06-11-2007, 06:07 AM

question : code from ghostdog74 works fine but how do i sort it from greatest to least occurrence?

i tried :
awk -F ":" '
{
fchar = substr($1,0,1)
++cnt[fchar]
}
END{
for (i in cnt) {
print i "=>" cnt[i] | "sort"
}
}' /etc/passwd |grep -nr

but it just reverses the order not the sorting from greatest to least.
any idea?

nadeemr · 06-12-2007, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nadeemr

question : code from ghostdog74 works fine but how do i sort it from greatest to least occurrence?

i tried :
awk -F ":" '
{
fchar = substr($1,0,1)
++cnt[fchar]
}
END{
for (i in cnt) {
print i "=>" cnt[i] | "sort"
}
}' /etc/passwd |grep -nr

but it just reverses the order not the sorting from greatest to least.
any idea?

please give me some hints on how to sort this code in order that it displays from greatest occurrence to least

druuna · 06-13-2007, 06:09 AM

Hi,

This should work:

Code:

nawk -F ":" '
{
  fchar = substr($1,0,1)
  ++cnt[fchar]
}
END{
  for (i in cnt) {
     print i " => " cnt[i] | "sort +2 -r"
  }
}' /etc/passwd

Output example run:

Code:

b => 5
s => 5
n => 4
d => 3
l => 2
m => 2
r => 2
a => 1
e => 1

ps: the sort used within awk is the normal sort program.

Hope this helps.