What does this command mean?
 

I am reading a tool manual and it instructs to use such a command:
Especially, what does the 'sort' parameters and awk do?
Thanks for explanation.

From this link:

For any basic command there will be a man page ... 'man sort' 'man awk'

- sort: I'm not sure whether the '+1' is valid but -r = reverse and -n = numeric
- awk: $1 indicates it will print the first field

cheers

Yes, I can't make sense of the '+1' either. Also, what about the slash "\" before the command "awk"? What does it do?

The original command from the manual is here:
Any further idea? Thanks.

The '\' is interpreted as meaning "continue on the next line", it's used in textbooks and examples so you can copy/paste without having to worry about fixing up long lines.

The '+1' may be valid on other *nix's

So I should remove the slash '\' when I actually execute this command? Because anyway I can't get this command to work on my cygwin environment.

I just found a tutorial:

"Sort on n+1 st field (old style key definition): sort +n"

So if the file has this format:
a 2
b 3
c 2
...

'sort +1' will sort the first column in that file?

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

Just a few links to aid you to gaining some understanding. Sure some may seem beyond a newbie but you must start somewhere;



Linux Documentation Project

Rute Tutorial & Exposition

Linux Command Guide

Utimate Linux Newbie Guide

LinuxSelfHelp

Getting Started with Linux

Bash Beginners Guide

Bash Reference Manual

Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide

Linux Home Networking



The above links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

.. it doesn't matter, bash will understand that the next line is part of the same command or ignore it if you don't use more than one line. Try removing the '+1' and it should work ok

cheers