stable sort in unix tools?

[Marc Ries]

>I'm stuck with a little sorting problem... not big enough to write my own
[...]
>(sorted by the number in the first column) that I would like to get
>sorted by the classification in the second column (A1, A2, A3...), but
>keeping the numbers in order within each classification.  The above list,
>for instance, would end up:
>
>1644    A1      blah blah blah
>1718    A1      still more
>1237    A2      text comments
>1357    A3      more text
>
>I need a stable sort, in other words, and the standard (4.3 bsd) UNIX sort
>doesn't seem to provide that.  Is there a way around this using UNIX tools?
>Is there another way?  Any help (including programs, if necessary) would be
>appreciated.
>
  
   In the past, "sort +1 -2 +0 -1 data_file" seemed to work ok 8-).























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		Marc A. ries at trwrb.TRW.COM

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