If I enter the following code to sort a file with columns separated by colons,
Code Sample
sort -t: -k 4 file.file
the result is that the file is sorted by the third field. In fact, it does not seem to matter which field I identify after the -k option. It sorts every time by the third field.
In another file with fixed length columns, I tried the code
Code Sample
sort -k 4 file.file
and the result was the same regardless of which column I sorted by.
What am I doing wrong? What other information can I provide to help identify the problem?
Thank you in advance.Works ok for me on this file:
Quote
a:b:i:j 1:h:c:z n:2:3:4
Post an example of the data in your file.The data is phone numbers, names, and dates. Example...