Record length with sort

[tony100]

I am sorting a number of files all of the same record length, 5051 bytes into 1 file. The files are keyed on bytes 1 to 31. The command I am using is

sort -T /dev/tmpusr -o /dev/tmpusr/fileout -k 1.1,1.31 file1 file2 file3 file4

the output file is then of varying record length which causes me problems in using the file as it needs to be fixed length 5051 bytes.

A warning error message is being produced during the sort execution:

sort: Warning: A newline character was added to the end of file file1

Do you know how I can force the record length to remain 5051 bytes ?

 

[usige]

Are these line oriented files? In other words is each 5051 byte record seperated by a newline. sort is designed to work on text files.

You could also try adding -z 5055 to your sort command. This will make sure you aren't overflowing the line buffer.

 

[tony100]

Thanks for your reply, fyi got round the problem by using mfsort which allows a file record definition for each input and output file.