Linux Sorting

Sorting

sort

Sorts lines in one or more files alphabetically (default) or numerically (-n).

sort input1.txt input2.txt > output.txt

Writes the sorted content of both files into output.txt.

Useful Options

• -n → numeric sort
• -r → reverse order
• -u → unique (equivalent to sort | uniq)
• -k → sort by column/field (e.g., sort -k2 file.txt)
• -t → specify delimiter (e.g., sort -t, -k2 file.csv)

uniq

Removes adjacent duplicate lines (so usually combined with sort).

sort input.txt | uniq > output.txt

Produces a sorted file without duplicates.

Useful Options

• -c → prefix lines by occurrence count
• -d → show only duplicates
• -u → show only unique lines

Example:

sort names.txt | uniq -c | sort -nr

Counts duplicate entries, then sorts results by frequency.

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Comparison

sort	Order lines alphabetically/numerically	sort -n scores.txt
uniq	Remove duplicate adjacent lines	sort data.txt &#124 uniq