Documented in Volume 1 of the UNIX Programmers Manual.
CAUTION: forms such as
sort < fname > fname
-and-
sort fname > fname
will destroy the file BEFORE sorting it!
% sort -f +0.24 infile > outfile
Sort, ignoring case, starting at field 0, (cc0), skipping 24 (start at cc25)
of infile, storing resulting file into outfile.
% sort +0.36 -0.40 +0.0 -0.10 xx > junk
Will sort file xx on columns 37-39 (major) and 1-9 (minor). The results
will be stored into the file junk.
% sort -u +0f +0 list
Print in alphabetical order all the unique spellings
in a list of words. Capitalized words differ from uncapitalized.
% sort -t: +2n /etc/passwd
Print the password file ( passwd (5))
sorted by user id number (the 3rd colon-separated field).
% sort -um +0 -1 dates
Print the first instance of each month in an already sorted file
of (month day) entries.
The options -um with just one input file make the choice of a
unique representative from a set of equal lines predictable.
% du -a | sort -nr | more
starting at the current directory, list the size and name of each file
(-a), then sort by value (-n) the initial numeric string, in descending
sequence (-r). This is good for file housekeeping.
% cat -n < inputfile | sort +1 -2 +0n | sed "s/^.......//"
will maintain "stability" in the file (i.e. when keys are equal, then the
output sequence will be identical to the input sequence). Stability is
NOT maintained otherwise, and the output sequence of records with identical
keys is not maintained.