Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!emv
From: emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Shell Programming Question - sort
Message-ID: <EMV.90Mar3040229@duby.math.lsa.umich.edu>
Date: 3 Mar 90 09:02:29 GMT
References: <751@ncs.dnd.ca>
Sender: news@math.lsa.umich.edu
Organization: University of Michigan Math Dept., Ann Arbor MI.
Lines: 25
In-reply-to: marwood@ncs.dnd.ca's message of 3 Mar 90 04:39:07 GMT

In article <751@ncs.dnd.ca> marwood@ncs.dnd.ca (Gordon Marwood) writes:

   I am trying to sort (using "sort" in Ultrix) based on the last two
   characters in a line (which are numeric).  There are a variable number
   of characters in a line, and these last two characters are preceded by a
   space, there are also a variable number of spaces in a line, so the
   number of fields will be variable if space is used as the field
   separator.  None of my available texts gives me a clue as to whether a
   sort can be done based on the last field in a line, regardless of the
   number of fields in the line.  Is there any "sort" option that can 
   do this ?

Here's how I'd do it in perl:

perl -e '@all=<>;sub l {substr($a,2,-2)-substr($b,2,-2);}; print sort l @all;'

If I had to do it without perl, I'd use awk to copy the last two 
characters on the line to the beginning, sort on those, and then
sed them out.  Glad I don't have to do that anymore.

Just ano...no, you don't want to hear that,

--Ed

Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept.