How to sort lines in a text file from the terminal?

Question

I have to sort the GPA in a file for my class lab. The teacher uses putty, for those of us that chose to use Ubuntu in the class, we have no idea how to do the command for ascending sort and descending sort.

Answer 1

Nam     GPA    Something
xyz     3.4     99  
pqr     4.5     23  
abc     5.6     44  
dcd     4.4     22  
edr     2.2     78

If you have a file like above. You can use the command below to sort by GPA. (change the key to sort by any field : '-k value')

sort -k 2 filename

If you want the reverse order use -r option

sort -r -k 2 filename

Answer 2

PuTTy is just the program used to connect to a computer.

There's a lovely command called sort you may wish to try.

Another man for manual, will give you all sorts of good information.

Try man sort or even the manual for the manual man man.