Sort In Numerical Order
By default, the sort command will sort things alphabetically. If you have
numerical input though, you may want a numerical sort. This is what the -n
flag is for.
If I have a directory of files with numbered names, sort doesn't quite do the job by itself.
$ ls | sort
1.txt
10.txt
11.txt
12.txt
2.txt
3.txt
4.txt
5.txt
with the -n flag, I get the sort order I am looking for.
$ ls | sort -n
1.txt
2.txt
3.txt
4.txt
5.txt
10.txt
11.txt
12.txt