Try following column-oriented sort script. Columns are expected to be delimited by one or more whitespaces. You can specify column(s) and column type to be used for sorting.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#
# Description:
#   Column oriented sort utility
#

my @columns;
my $column;
my $type;
my $first;
my $line;
my $sort_code;
my $sort_tmpl   = q|sub sort_sub {
        my @col_a = split(/\s+/, $a);
        my @col_b = split(/\s+/, $b);
        __SORT_CODE__
}|;


sub print_usage {
        my $exit        = shift || 0;
        my $error       = shift;

        print qq|Usage:
  $0 <column>[,<column>]+ [file]

Column oriented sort. Input data columns are expected to be delimited
by one or more whitespaces.

Param(s):
  column    - number of column (starting from 1) to be used for
  sorting. Use suffix to specify column type. Available suffixes
    a - column is text (default)
    d - column is decimal number
    x - column is hexadecimal number
  file      - source data file. Data are read from STDIN if omitted

Example:
  $0 3d,2x,4 /input/data
    Sort content of /input/data using
      1. 3rd column as decimal number,
      2. 2nd column as hexadecimal number and
      3. finaly 4th column as text

|;
        print "ERROR: $error\n" if ($error);

        exit $exit;
}

print_usage(1, "Missing params") if (@ARGV < 1);
print_usage(0)  if ($ARGV[0] =~ /^--?h(e(lp?)?)?/);
@columns        = split(/,/, shift @ARGV);
print_usage(1, "Incorrect 'column(s)' param") if (!@columns);

$first  = 1;
$line   = <>;
for (@columns) {
        $sort_code .= "|| "     if (!$first);
        if ($_ =~ /^(\d+)(.)?/) {
                $column = $1 - 1;
                $type   = $2 ? lc($2) : 'a';
                $type   = 'a' if ($type !~ /^(?:a|d|x)$/);
                if ($type eq 'x') {
                        $sort_code .= "hex(\$col_a[$column]) <=> hex(\
+$col_b[$column]) ";
                } elsif($type eq 'd') {
                        $sort_code .= "\$col_a[$column] <=> \$col_b[$c
+olumn] ";
                } else {
                        $sort_code .= "\$col_a[$column] cmp \$col_b[$c
+olumn] ";
                }
        } else {
                print_usage(1, "Incorrect 'column(s)' param");
        }
        $first  = 0;
}
$sort_code      .= ";\n";

$sort_tmpl      =~ s/__SORT_CODE__/$sort_code/;
eval $sort_tmpl;

print sort sort_sub $line, <>;

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In reply to Re: Sorting by column by ph0enix
in thread Sorting by column by Sun751

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