The Linux sort Command: Sorting Lines

sort orders lines of text. Essential for organizing output.

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Basic Usage

sort file.txt

Alphabetical sort.

Numeric sort

sort -n numbers.txt

Numeric values.

Reverse

sort -r file.txt

Descending order.

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Options

• -n — Numeric sort
• -r — Reverse
• -u — Unique (dedupe)
• -k N — Sort by column N
• -t c — Field separator
• -h — Human numeric (1K, 1M)

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Examples

Sort by column

sort -k2,2 -t',' data.csv

Sort by 2nd field.

Unique sorted

sort -u file.txt

Sort and remove duplicates.

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Further Reading

• sort Manual
• sort Command Builder