UNIX sort with exponential values?

unix sorting csv exponent
drbunsen picture drbunsen · Sep 14, 2011 · Viewed 19.6k times · Source

I have a csv file with 7 fields of data. I want to sort the 7th field in reverse numerial order (smallest values first). The 7th field of data looks like this:

0.498469643137
1
6.98112003175e-10
9.11278069581e-06

I have tried to use the UNIX sort tool like this:

$ sort -t"," -n -k -r 7 <my_file>

The problem I am having is that sort does not recognize exponential form. For example, sort thinks 6.98112003175e-10 is larger than 1. How can I use sort to sort a csv column, but recognize the scientific notation? Thanks in advance for the help.

Answer

Finslicer picture Finslicer · Sep 14, 2011

sort with '-g' option should do the trick for you. -g option indicates 'use generic numerical value' for sorting

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