Hi all,

A csv file, each line starting with date like this:

1/11/2002,filed2,filed3....

as we can see, if we use the sort command to sort it, it will only sort
by day, not by year-month-day sequence.

any wise method to sort it in year-month-day orders?

Thanks very much.

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On 2006-03-15, pleasedunreply@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> A csv file, each line starting with date like this:
>
> 1/11/2002,filed2,filed3....

Is that Nov. 1 or Jan. 11?

> as we can see, if we use the sort command to sort it, it will only sort
> by day, not by year-month-day sequence.
>
> any wise method to sort it in year-month-day orders?

My first advice, is, Always store dates in ISO format: 2002-11-01.
Then you can use sort. This script prepends a sane date to each
line, sorts it, then removes it, leaving the ugly date intact:

awk -F, '{ split($1,d,"/")
printf "%04d%02d%02d\t", d[3], d[2], d[1]
print
}' | sort | cut -f2-


I'd prefer:

awk -F, -v OFS=, '{ split($1,d,"/")
$1 = sprintf("%04d-%02d-%02d", d[3], d[2], d[1])
print
}' | sort

--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author   |    <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes:     |  My code in this post, if any,
A Problem-Solution Approach  |          is released under the
2005, Apress                 |     GNU General Public Licence

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On 15 Mar 2006 03:47:53 -0800, pleasedunreply@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> A csv file, each line starting with date like this:
>
> 1/11/2002,filed2,filed3....
>
> as we can see, if we use the sort command to sort it, it will only sort
> by day, not by year-month-day sequence.
[...]

sort -n -t / -k 3,3 -k 2,2 -k 1,1

(if it's mm/dd/yyyy)

--
Stephane

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On 15 Mar 2006 12:30:33 GMT, Stephane Chazelas wrote:
> On 15 Mar 2006 03:47:53 -0800, pleasedunreply@gmail.com wrote: 
> [...]
>
> sort -n -t / -k 3,3 -k 2,2 -k 1,1
>
> (if it's mm/dd/yyyy)

Sorry, I meant dd/mm/yyyy

--
Stephane

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pleasedunreply@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> A csv file, each line starting with date like this:
>
> 1/11/2002,filed2,filed3....
>
> as we can see, if we use the sort command to sort it, it will only sort
> by day, not by year-month-day sequence.
>
> any wise method to sort it in year-month-day orders?
>
> Thanks very much.

"mon/day/year" ==>

sort -t/ -n -k3 -k1 -k2 myfile.txt

"day/mon/year" ==>

sort -t/ -n -k3 -k2 -k1 myfile.txt

Xicheng

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Xicheng wrote:
> pleasedunreply@gmail.com wrote: 

sorry, shold be:
"mon/day/year" ==>[vbcol=seagreen]
> sort -t/ -n -k3 -k1 -k2 myfile.txt

sort -t/ -n -k3.1,3.4 -k1 -k2 myfile.txt

"day/mon/year" ==>
> sort -t/ -n -k3 -k2 -k1 myfile.txt
sort -t/ -n -k3.1,3.4 -k2 -k1 myfile.txt

Xicheng

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Thanks all my friends, It save me hours of work to solve the problem
thanks again

(I am the guy who post the question)


pleasedunreply@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> A csv file, each line starting with date like this:
>
> 1/11/2002,filed2,filed3....
>
> as we can see, if we use the sort command to sort it, it will only sort
> by day, not by year-month-day sequence.
>
> any wise method to sort it in year-month-day orders?
>
> Thanks very much.
>

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On 2006-03-15, SaltyBall <SaltyBall@Hell.com> wrote:
> Thanks all my friends, It save me hours of work to solve the problem
> thanks again
>
> (I am the guy who post the question)

You forgot to ask how much you owe them.  [:-)]
[vbcol=seagreen]
>
>
> pleasedunreply@gmail.com wrote: 

--

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In article <1142434424.518800.83510@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com>,
Xicheng <xicheng@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>sorry, shold be:
> "mon/day/year" ==> 
>
>sort -t/ -n -k3.1,3.4 -k1 -k2 myfile.txt
>
>  "day/mon/year" ==> 
>sort -t/ -n -k3.1,3.4 -k2 -k1 myfile.txt
>
>Xicheng

Don't believe in being prepared for the Y10K problem, eh?   *grin*

Note: your original works _just_fine_, because of the '-n' flag that precede
s
all the keys.

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Robert Bonomi wrote:
> In article <1142434424.518800.83510@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com>,
> Xicheng <xicheng@gmail.com> wrote: 
>
> Don't believe in being prepared for the Y10K problem, eh?   *grin*

not really, at least in my Ubuntu-box, given the following data, I got
different results by using two different waysI have two numbers
behind the comma in line-5, and line-7):
===================
1/11/2002,filed2,filed3
2/14/2005,dsgdgsd
8/31/2001,ewtrgtd
1/3/1999,sgdf
2/7/2005,1sdf
2/2/2005,eraef
1/7/2005,2eraef
====================

sort -t/ -n -k3.1,3.4 -k1 -k2 myfile.txt
====print===========
1/3/1999,sgdf
8/31/2001,ewtrgtd
1/11/2002,filed2,filed3
1/7/2005,2eraef
2/2/2005,eraef
2/7/2005,1sdf
2/14/2005,dsgdgsd
==================

sort -t/ -n -k3 -k1 -k2 myfile.txt
=====print==========
1/3/1999,sgdf
8/31/2001,ewtrgtd
1/11/2002,filed2,filed3
2/2/2005,eraef
2/14/2005,dsgdgsd
2/7/2005,1sdf
1/7/2005,2eraef
===================
Xicheng


> Note: your original works _just_fine_, because of the '-n' flag that prece
des
> all the keys.

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