Unix Shell - Can unix sort handle multiple spaces as delimiter between fields? Can't get it to work

Author

Can unix sort handle multiple spaces as delimiter between fields? Can't get it to work

colin_lyse

2005-02-02, 5:56 pm

runing Sun Unix 5.8 on Sun-Fire-15000

i have a smal file (20k) that looks like the following. some fields have 1
space between them, others 2, others more. (. = space)

00290..S.....33.XS798............SUB.......SUB ACTIVE 19971202
00090..S.... 69KV..TSS30 TR LTC TR2 ACTIVE 20050201
00135..S.... 69KV..TSS30 TRLTC TR1 ACTIVE 20050201

the problem is that when i do the following

sort +2 -3 it works the 3rd the list is correctly sorted in the third column.
however, if I want to sort on the 4 colum and do

sort +4 -5 it does not work (see example above), it sorts by the 4th column
only in relation to the 3rd column (x goes first because of the 33), howve i
think it might be related to the 1 vs. 2 spaces.

I though about replacing the spaces with tabs, however some of the fields have
spaces within them leading to problems with alignment.

i also tried
sort -n -k 5,5 -k 4,4 -k 6,6 but that didn't work only if i stoped after
field 3

It seems like the problem is that after field 3 there are differing amounts of
space between fields .

any help greated appreciated.

Rakesh Sharma

2005-02-02, 5:56 pm

colin_lyse wrote:
> runing Sun Unix 5.8 on Sun-Fire-15000
>
> i have a smal file (20k) that looks like the following. some fields
have 1
> space between them, others 2, others more. (. = space)
>
> 00290..S.....33.XS798............SUB.......SUB ACTIVE
19971202
> 00090..S.... 69KV..TSS30 TR LTC TR2 ACTIVE
20050201
> 00135..S.... 69KV..TSS30 TRLTC TR1 ACTIVE
20050201
>
> the problem is that when i do the following
>
> sort +2 -3 it works the 3rd the list is correctly sorted in the
third column.
> however, if I want to sort on the 4 colum and do
>
> sort +4 -5 it does not work (see example above), it sorts by the 4th
column
> only in relation to the 3rd column (x goes first because of the 33),
howve i
> think it might be related to the 1 vs. 2 spaces.
>
> I though about replacing the spaces with tabs, however some of the
fields have
> spaces within them leading to problems with alignment.
>
> i also tried
> sort -n -k 5,5 -k 4,4 -k 6,6 but that didn't work only if i stoped
after
> field 3
>
> It seems like the problem is that after field 3 there are differing
amounts of
> space between fields .
>
>
> any help greated appreciated.

sort -b ....

Greg Beeker

2005-02-03, 7:52 am

Rakesh Sharma wrote:
> colin_lyse wrote:
fields[vbcol=seagreen]
> have 1
> 19971202
> 20050201
> 20050201
> third column.
4th[vbcol=seagreen]
> column
33),[vbcol=seagreen]
> howve i
[vbcol=seagreen]
> sort -b ....

After trying your example data, I noticed that the TRLTC (4th field)
had a space, so I changed the space to a ., and this seemed to work,
along with taking out the -3 or -5.

>sort +3 <data
00290 S 33.XS798 SUB SUB ACTIVE
19971202
00090 S 69KV..TSS30 TR.LTC TR2 ACTIVE
20050201
00135 S 69KV..TSS30 TRLTC TR1 ACTIVE
20050201

$ sort +4 <data
00290 S 33.XS798 SUB SUB ACTIVE
19971202
00135 S 69KV..TSS30 TRLTC TR1 ACTIVE
20050201
00090 S 69KV..TSS30 TR.LTC TR2 ACTIVE
20050201

In fact the -b was not needed, or didn't change the results.

Greg Beeker

2005-02-09, 8:51 pm