sorting 2 dimension array

[phoebekong]

Hi there,

Can someone let me know how to sort the 2 dimensional array below by column 1 then by column 2?

22 55
2222 2230
33 66
44 58
222 240
11 25
22 60
33 45

output:
11 25
22 55
22 60
33 45
33 66
44 58
222 240
2222 2230

Please note that this is a small part in my awk script. the input data is not in file, but it was manipulated in my script.

Could you suggest a code to solve this?

Thanks,
Phoebe

[phoebekong]

nobody happen to this kind of problem? please advice.

[blinky]

man sort

cat datafile | sort -t " " -n -k 1,2 

or 

sort -t " " -n -k 1,2 datafile

[phoebekong]

unfortunately, as I mentioned in the question, my input data is not a file. The input data was manipulated in the script.

I wish to sort the array in the awk script.

Thanks,

[Kloschüssel]

then pipe the output of awk to the sort.

[phoebekong]

the two dimension array was generated through a looping for 2000 times. In the end of loop, I would have a table created with first column consists of the array[,1] for each, and second column consist of array[,2] for each.

1 11,22,22,33,33,44,222,2222 25,55,60,45,66,58,240,2230

I can't pipe the output in each loop to the sort, right?
I'm new with awk scripting. Please advice.

[Kloschüssel]

but you can pipe the whole output, right?

if you have scriptA, you can pipe the output of it to scriptB by doing:

scriptA | scriptB

or doing (within scriptA):

output="";
for i in $(seq 5); do output="${output} something"; done;
echo $output | sort