title: Sorting multiple keys with Unix sort
body: <p>I have potentially large files that need to be sorted by 1-n keys.  Some of these keys might be numeric and some of them might not be.  This is a fixed-width columnar file so there are no delimiters.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a good way to do this with Unix sort?  With one key it is as simple as using '-n'.  I have read the man page and searched Google briefly, but didn't find a good example.  How would I go about accomplishing this?</p>
  
  <p>Note:  I have ruled out Perl because of the file size potential.  It would be a last resort.</p>