On Mon, Oct 01, 2012 at 11:14:31AM +0000, eduardo.damasio-da-co...@stfc.ac.uk wrote: > The command sort -k 3,3 lixo > lixo4 does not sort lixo as I was expecting. > For example, by line 385 lixo4 shows: > 69.1875 -59.2511 1.00242e-05 > 70.875 -62.0592 1.00242e-05 > 145.125 -74.9763 1.00252e-06 > 147.375 77.7844 1.00252e-06 > 151.312 78.346 1.00252e-06 > 15.75 80.0308 1.00252e-06 > 158.062 68.7986 1.00252e-06 > 158.625 68.237 1.00252e-06 > 191.25 73.8531 1.00252e-06 > 235.688 78.9076 1.00252e-06 > 327.938 -86.7694 1.00252e-06 > 93.9375 55.8813 1.00252e-06 > 95.0625 38.4711 1.00252e-06 > 10.125 -5.33541 1.00255e-05 > 14.625 40.1559 1.00255e-05 > 230.625 -64.8672 1.00255e-05 > that is, third column is not sorted.
This is not a bash bug -- in fact it's not a bug at all, but most importantly, sort is an external program, not part of the bash shell. If you wanted the third column to be sorted numerically, instead of as a bunch of strings (which it's doing now), then you need to use the -n or perhaps the -g option to sort. (Note: -g is a GNU extension.)
