linux sort command with delimiter in data

Question

I need to sort a big csv file .So,using

sort

command will be quite good.

But, I am facing an issue that delimiter ',' is also present in the data . So, sorting on fields with ',' works unexpectedly .

The file contains data like

Ahmedabad ,"7,Olive residency ", 380058
Gandhinagar,"85,Kabir villa",38048
Surat ,Binory Bunglows,589635

And I am using sort command like

 sort --field-separator=',' -s -k 3,3  bigfile.csv

Which does not give desired output.

Can any one help me with this ?

You should probably just bite the bullet and use a CSV parser. — Jon Surrell
– Jon Surrell, Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 17:27
or reexport the data with a field delilmiter that is not in your data. The <tab> character is often very useful, as it is difficult (but not impossible) for <tab> to be inserted into an on-line data entry form. Good luck. — shellter
– shellter, Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 18:47

cramopy · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-26 14:00:54Z

5

sort -k3 -t',' -nr bigfile.csv

edited Oct 26, 2017 at 14:00

cramopy

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answered Oct 26, 2017 at 13:24

Or Davidi

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2 Comments

Ross Presser Over a year ago

While this does answer the question, it is very very skimpy. You should add at least a sentence of discussion and maybe a link to the sort(1) documentation.

Tom Aranda Over a year ago

Also, I recommend indenting your answer four spaces to display it as code.

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