I'm using unix sort to sort a comma delimited file with multiple columns. Thus far, this has worked perfectly for sorting the data either numerically or in alphabetical order: Example file before any sorting: C,United States,WA,Tacoma,f,1 A,United States,MA,Boston,f,0 B,United States,NY,New York,f,5 A,Canada,QC,Montreal,f,2 A,Bahamas,Bahamas,Nassau,f,2 A,United States,NY,New York,f,1 Sort the file: $ sort -t ',' -k 2,2 -k 3,3 -k 4,4 -k 5,5r -k 6,6nr tmp.csv Sorted result: A,Bahamas,Bahamas,Nassau,f,2 A,Canada,QC,Montreal,f,2 A,United States,MA,Boston,f,0 B,United States,NY,New York,f,5 A,United States,NY,New York,f,1 C,United States,WA,Tacoma,f,1 Here is the issue: I want to sort column 2 based on a custom sort, meaning I want United States first, then Canada, then Bahamas: Desired sort: A,United States,MA,Boston,f,0 B,United States,NY,New York,f,5 A,United States,NY,New York,f,1 C,United States,WA,Tacoma,f,1 A,Canada,QC,Montreal,f,2 A,Bahamas,Bahamas,Nassau,f,2 Is there some way to pass unix sort a custom sort order that it can then apply? Something like: $ sort -t ',' -k 2,2:'United States, Canada, Bahamas' -k 3,3 -k 4,4 -k 5,5r -k 6,6nr tmp.csv Thanks!