regardless of where the data is (field 1 or field 2).
The key must be either in field 1 or in field 2. It can't vary by row. You're providing
Field 1 Field 2 Field 3
----------- ----------- -----------
56 1752.eps "", "56", "1752.eps" key in 2
1160 trace.exe "1160", "trace.exe" key in 1
123 foo bar.pl "123", "foo", "bar.pl" key in 1
You need to normalize your fields so that they are the same for each row. I did it by removing the extraneous delimiter in the front of some lines.
Field 1 Field 2 Field 3
----------- ----------- -----------
56 1752.eps "56", "1752.eps" key in 1
1160 trace.exe "1160", "trace.exe" key in 1
123 foo bar.pl "123", "foo", "bar.pl" key in 1
You could also add an extraneous delimiter to the lines that don't have one.
Field 1 Field 2 Field 3 Field 4
----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
56 1752.eps "", "56", "1752.eps"
1160 trace.exe "", "1160", "trace.exe"
123 foo bar.pl "", "123", "foo", "bar.pl"
By the way, why not just let ls do the sorting if you're going to use ls?
Update: Improved visuals.
-
Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
-
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big>
<blockquote> <br /> <dd>
<dl> <dt> <em> <font>
<h1> <h2> <h3> <h4>
<h5> <h6> <hr /> <i>
<li> <nbsp> <ol> <p>
<small> <strike> <strong>
<sub> <sup> <table>
<td> <th> <tr> <tt>
<u> <ul>
-
Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not
<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).
-
Want more info? How to link
or How to display code and escape characters
are good places to start.