awk sort function not sorting from lowest to highest.

skuz_ball · 08-06-2008, 09:19 PM

I am trying to use the awk sort function to sort numbers from a column of numbers from lowest to highest.

Here is an example of what the numbers from the column look like:

1
2
3
10
4
12

I am using the following to sort the numbers:

awk '(print $1}' file | sort

The output is:

1
10
12
2
3
4

Clearly this is not the order of the numbers from lowest to highest. Can anyone give me advice on what has to added for the numbers to be sorted correctly.

Mr. C. · 08-06-2008, 09:23 PM

The sort function you are using is not part of awk. It is a standard *nix command. The pipeline takes the output of the left hand side (awk), and sends it ot the right hand side (sort).

Try the -n option.

Don't forget to check out those man pages!

man sort

skuz_ball · 08-06-2008, 09:29 PM

thanks for that

i'll be sure to check the man pages next.

ghostdog74 · 08-06-2008, 09:50 PM

if you have GNU awk

Code:

awk '{a[++d]=$1}
END{
 n = asort(a,b)
 for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
  print b[i]
 }
}' file

haydar68 · 08-09-2008, 12:20 AM

Hi Skuz_Ball,

Here is a simple command:

awk -F ":" '{print|"sort -n"}' file