Issue
I know the sort command can be made to use only some of the information on each input line as the sort key, e.g. using sort -k 2 to skip the initial sequence of characters up to a whitespace; and I know I can use a different field delimiter with -t.
Suppose, though, that I want to sort input while ignoring the first few characters - which are not fixed. For example, this:
bar10
baz12
foo1
gaa11
quu2
should become, using only the 4th character and onwards:
foo1
bar10
gaa11
baz12
quu2
Of course I can do this with a more involved scripting language, like awk (e.g. this way). But is there something simpler I could do instead?
Solution
As mentioned in the comment, it's just: sort -k1.4
The syntax understood by sort is rather drily explained in the standard: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/sort.html
(But it does provide a few examples.)
It's worth remembering that locale settings affect output ordering.
Answered By - jhnc Answer Checked By - Mary Flores (WPSolving Volunteer)
