Sorting values numerically | LinuC Level 1 101 Exam original practice question

1.03.2Basic

values.txt contains 2, 10, and 100 on separate lines.

Sort them by numeric value in ascending order rather than lexicographically.

Which command is appropriate?

Hint 1: Focus on the requirement

The values are numeric, so select numeric comparison and the requested ascending direction.

Hint 2: Key terms

Review the short stream-processing definitions before comparing the choices.

sort: Orders input lines according to comparison rules.
-n: The sort option that compares numeric values.
Numeric comparison: Comparing parsed numbers instead of their digit strings.
Ascending order: Ordering from the smallest value to the largest.

Detailed explanation

Correctsort -n values.txt

Correct. sort -n compares the values numerically.

Incorrectsort values.txt

Incorrect. Default sort uses string comparison, which can place 10 before 2.

Incorrectsort -r values.txt

Incorrect. -r reverses the comparison but does not enable numeric comparison.

Incorrectuniq values.txt

Incorrect. uniq removes adjacent duplicates and does not sort values.

An example you can run in a temporary verification environment.

printf '10\n2\n100\n' | sort -n

2
10
100

Foundation review

Numeric sort prevents lexical ordering from placing values such as 10 before 2.

Use a small list whose lexical and numeric orders differ.

Question IDKL-101-460

EnvironmentGNU coreutils 9.x / 標準入力

Last technical review2026-08-13

More practice in this area