How to sort over two columns with exponents in bash

Question

I need to sort some data from file "test" (example of data):

1.03073 0.000193333 2.02417 2.15578
1.03073 0.0002 2.12005 2.14534
1.03073 1.33333e-05 100 0
1.03073 2e-05 100 0

so that it is sorted over first column first, and over second afterwards. I tried with

sort -n -k1 -k2 -u test >test1 

but it messes up because he does not see "e-5" part. Any ideas?

Answer 1

You can use -g:

sort -k1,2 -g file

From man sort:

-g, --general-numeric-sort

compare according to general numerical value

Test

$ cat a
1.03073 0.000193333 2.02417 2.15578
1.03073 0.0002 2.12005 2.14534
1.03073 1.33333e-05 100 0
1.03073 2e-05 100 0
1.03073 2e-04 100 0
1.03073 2e-06 100 0

$ sort -k1,2 -g a
1.03073 0.000193333 2.02417 2.15578
1.03073 0.0002 2.12005 2.14534
1.03073 1.33333e-05 100 0
1.03073 2e-04 100 0
1.03073 2e-05 100 0
1.03073 2e-06 100 0