How to use awk sort by column 3

Solution 1:

How about just sort.

sort -t, -nk3 user.csv

where

  • -t, - defines your delimiter as ,.

  • -n - gives you numerical sort. Added since you added it in your attempt. If your user field is text only then you dont need it.

  • -k3 - defines the field (key). user is the third field.

Solution 2:

  1. Use awk to put the user ID in front.
  2. Sort
  3. Use sed to remove the duplicate user ID, assuming user IDs do not contain any spaces.

    awk -F, '{ print $3, $0 }' user.csv | sort | sed 's/^.* //'
    

Solution 3:

You can choose a delimiter, in this case I chose a colon and printed the column number one, sorting by alphabetical order:

awk -F\: '{print $1|"sort -u"}' /etc/passwd

Solution 4:

awk -F, '{ print $3, $0 }' user.csv | sort -nk2 

and for reverse order

awk -F, '{ print $3, $0 }' user.csv | sort -nrk2 

Solution 5:

try this -

awk '{print $0|"sort -t',' -nk3 "}' user.csv

OR

sort -t',' -nk3 user.csv