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Linux cut, sort, uniq, tr, paste, join, and comm Cheat Sheet/Sort by a specific field

Sort on the second whitespace-separated column.

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Section: sort and uniq

Sort by a specific field

bash
bash
sort -k2,2 file.txt
Explanation

Field sorting is essential for tabular command output.

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Same sheet · prioritizing sort and uniq
Sort lines alphabetically
Default lexicographic sort.
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Sort in reverse order
Invert the output order.
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Sort numerically
Order lines by numeric value.
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Sort human-readable sizes
Sort values like 1K, 5M, 2G.
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Sort and deduplicate
Return sorted unique lines.
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Count duplicate lines
Count occurrences of adjacent duplicate lines.
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