Linux sort P-values with scientific notation

Question

[Shicheng Guo]

Hi All,

I want to sort P-values in bash with sort command. The P-values are as the following:

A    1.14e-06
B    4.35e-05
C    0.5361
D    0.7278

When you use sort -k2n,2 input.txt, the result is as the following:

C    0.5361
D    0.7278
A    1.14e-06
B    4.35e-05

I tried sort -gk2n,2 input.txt and not working neither.

Anyone can share a correct bash or Perl one-line command to sort them correctly.

Thanks.

Answer 1

[JC]

$ sort -g -k2 list
A    1.14e-06
B    4.35e-05
C    0.5361
D    0.7278

[Shicheng Guo]

interesting. remove n numeric works. and works very well

Answer 2

[zx8754]

Using both g and n at the same time gives an error:

$ sort -gn input.txt
sort: options '-gn' are incompatible

Or:

$ sort -k2ng,2 input.txt
sort: options '-gn' are incompatible

I am guessing, in your case it doesn't throw an error as we are using g for all columns and n for the second column.