Re: ptx outputs empty file

[Paul Jarc]

address@hidden (jmoss) wrote:
> Input is about 1000 lines of three-column text with tabs as column delimiter.
> Sorting is to be performed on the middle column.

You can use sed to switch the first two columns, sort, and sed again
to switch them back (if necessary).
sed 's/^\([^    ]*      \)\([^  ]*      \)/\2\1/'

> The UNIX sort commands works for sorting only on the first word

GNU sort also has:
       -k, --key=POS1[,POS2]
              start a key at POS1, end it at POS 2 (origin 1)


paul