Simple sorting in linux

I’m quite new to linux, and I can’t quite get to understand sorting. I need to sort a long file by column 4 and then column 5, ignoring the first line. The catch is, there are two separators – ‘.’ and ‘,’ – I don’t know how to make sort command to include both of them. I guess it has to be sorted by the column that has “3” in the first line, and then in the second sort by the column that has “5” in the second line. And the second thing is I don’t know how to keep the first line intact. Worth noting I can’t change all ‘,’ into ‘.’, it has to stay intact. And I can’t just remove the first line with tail or head, it has to stay.

This is the text:

d,SepalLengthCm,SepalWidthCm,PetalLengthCm,PetalWidthCm,Species
1,5.1,3.5,1.4,0.2,Iris-setosa
2,4.9,3.0,1.4,0.2,Iris-setosa
3,4.7,3.2,1.3,0.2,Iris-setosa
4,4.6,3.1,1.5,0.2,Iris-setosa
5,5.0,3.6,1.4,0.2,Iris-setosa
6,5.4,3.9,1.7,0.4,Iris-setosa
7,4.6,3.4,1.4,0.3,Iris-setosa
8,5.0,3.4,1.5,0.2,Iris-setosa
9,4.4,2.9,1.4,0.2,Iris-setosa
10,4.9,3.1,1.5,0.1,Iris-setosa
11,5.4,3.7,1.5,0.2,Iris-setosa
12,4.8,3.4,1.6,0.2,Iris-setosa
13,4.8,3.0,1.4,0.1,Iris-setosa
14,4.3,3.0,1.1,0.1,Iris-setosa
15,5.8,4.0,1.2,0.2,Iris-setosa
16,5.7,4.4,1.5,0.4,Iris-setosa
17,5.4,3.9,1.3,0.4,Iris-setosa
18,5.1,3.5,1.4,0.3,Iris-setosa
19,5.7,3.8,1.7,0.3,Iris-setosa
20,5.1,3.8,1.5,0.3,Iris-setosa
21,5.4,3.4,1.7,0.2,Iris-setosa
22,5.1,3.7,1.5,0.4,Iris-setosa
23,4.6,3.6,1.0,0.2,Iris-setosa
24,5.1,3.3,1.7,0.5,Iris-setosa
25,4.8,3.4,1.9,0.2,Iris-setosa
26,5.0,3.0,1.6,0.2,Iris-setosa
27,5.0,3.4,1.6,0.4,Iris-setosa
28,5.2,3.5,1.5,0.2,Iris-setosa
29,5.2,3.4,1.4,0.2,Iris-setosa
30,4.7,3.2,1.6,0.2,Iris-setosa
31,4.8,3.1,1.6,0.2,Iris-setosa
32,5.4,3.4,1.5,0.4,Iris-setosa
33,5.2,4.1,1.5,0.1,Iris-setosa
34,5.5,4.2,1.4,0.2,Iris-setosa
35,4.9,3.1,1.5,0.1,Iris-setosa
36,5.0,3.2,1.2,0.2,Iris-setosa
37,5.5,3.5,1.3,0.2,Iris-setosa
38,4.9,3.1,1.5,0.1,Iris-setosa
39,4.4,3.0,1.3,0.2,Iris-setosa
40,5.1,3.4,1.5,0.2,Iris-setosa
41,5.0,3.5,1.3,0.3,Iris-setosa
42,4.5,2.3,1.3,0.3,Iris-setosa
43,4.4,3.2,1.3,0.2,Iris-setosa
44,5.0,3.5,1.6,0.6,Iris-setosa
45,5.1,3.8,1.9,0.4,Iris-setosa
46,4.8,3.0,1.4,0.3,Iris-setosa
47,5.1,3.8,1.6,0.2,Iris-setosa
48,4.6,3.2,1.4,0.2,Iris-setosa
49,5.3,3.7,1.5,0.2,Iris-setosa
50,5.0,3.3,1.4,0.2,Iris-setosa
51,7.0,3.2,4.7,1.4,Iris-versicolor
52,6.4,3.2,4.5,1.5,Iris-versicolor
53,6.9,3.1,4.9,1.5,Iris-versicolor
54,5.5,2.3,4.0,1.3,Iris-versicolor
55,6.5,2.8,4.6,1.5,Iris-versicolor
56,5.7,2.8,4.5,1.3,Iris-versicolor
57,6.3,3.3,4.7,1.6,Iris-versicolor
58,4.9,2.4,3.3,1.0,Iris-versicolor
59,6.6,2.9,4.6,1.3,Iris-versicolor
60,5.2,2.7,3.9,1.4,Iris-versicolor
61,5.0,2.0,3.5,1.0,Iris-versicolor
62,5.9,3.0,4.2,1.5,Iris-versicolor
63,6.0,2.2,4.0,1.0,Iris-versicolor
64,6.1,2.9,4.7,1.4,Iris-versicolor
65,5.6,2.9,3.6,1.3,Iris-versicolor
66,6.7,3.1,4.4,1.4,Iris-versicolor
67,5.6,3.0,4.5,1.5,Iris-versicolor
68,5.8,2.7,4.1,1.0,Iris-versicolor
69,6.2,2.2,4.5,1.5,Iris-versicolor
70,5.6,2.5,3.9,1.1,Iris-versicolor
71,5.9,3.2,4.8,1.8,Iris-versicolor
72,6.1,2.8,4.0,1.3,Iris-versicolor
73,6.3,2.5,4.9,1.5,Iris-versicolor
74,6.1,2.8,4.7,1.2,Iris-versicolor
75,6.4,2.9,4.3,1.3,Iris-versicolor
76,6.6,3.0,4.4,1.4,Iris-versicolor
77,6.8,2.8,4.8,1.4,Iris-versicolor
78,6.7,3.0,5.0,1.7,Iris-versicolor
79,6.0,2.9,4.5,1.5,Iris-versicolor
80,5.7,2.6,3.5,1.0,Iris-versicolor
81,5.5,2.4,3.8,1.1,Iris-versicolor
82,5.5,2.4,3.7,1.0,Iris-versicolor
83,5.8,2.7,3.9,1.2,Iris-versicolor
84,6.0,2.7,5.1,1.6,Iris-versicolor
85,5.4,3.0,4.5,1.5,Iris-versicolor
86,6.0,3.4,4.5,1.6,Iris-versicolor
87,6.7,3.1,4.7,1.5,Iris-versicolor
88,6.3,2.3,4.4,1.3,Iris-versicolor
89,5.6,3.0,4.1,1.3,Iris-versicolor
90,5.5,2.5,4.0,1.3,Iris-versicolor
91,5.5,2.6,4.4,1.2,Iris-versicolor
92,6.1,3.0,4.6,1.4,Iris-versicolor
93,5.8,2.6,4.0,1.2,Iris-versicolor
94,5.0,2.3,3.3,1.0,Iris-versicolor
95,5.6,2.7,4.2,1.3,Iris-versicolor
96,5.7,3.0,4.2,1.2,Iris-versicolor
97,5.7,2.9,4.2,1.3,Iris-versicolor
98,6.2,2.9,4.3,1.3,Iris-versicolor
99,5.1,2.5,3.0,1.1,Iris-versicolor
100,5.7,2.8,4.1,1.3,Iris-versicolor
101,6.3,3.3,6.0,2.5,Iris-virginica
102,5.8,2.7,5.1,1.9,Iris-virginica
103,7.1,3.0,5.9,2.1,Iris-virginica
104,6.3,2.9,5.6,1.8,Iris-virginica
105,6.5,3.0,5.8,2.2,Iris-virginica
106,7.6,3.0,6.6,2.1,Iris-virginica
107,4.9,2.5,4.5,1.7,Iris-virginica
108,7.3,2.9,6.3,1.8,Iris-virginica
109,6.7,2.5,5.8,1.8,Iris-virginica
110,7.2,3.6,6.1,2.5,Iris-virginica
111,6.5,3.2,5.1,2.0,Iris-virginica
112,6.4,2.7,5.3,1.9,Iris-virginica
113,6.8,3.0,5.5,2.1,Iris-virginica
114,5.7,2.5,5.0,2.0,Iris-virginica
115,5.8,2.8,5.1,2.4,Iris-virginica
116,6.4,3.2,5.3,2.3,Iris-virginica
117,6.5,3.0,5.5,1.8,Iris-virginica

Answer

I’m not sure if I understand the problem: in order to sort on columns 4 and 5 numerically, you can simply say:

sort -t, -k4,5 -n

• -t, says to use a comma as a column separator
• -k4,5 says to sort, based on columns 4 and 5
• -n says to sort numerically

Remarks:

• As far as the hyphen concerns: as it’s no part of the sorting columns, why bother about it?
• As far as the column headers are concerned: due to the type of sorting, a letter comes in front of any number, so the column headers stay headers, so again why bother about it?