Lessons · Terminal · the ten commonest values
The ten commonest values
Cut the column, sort so duplicates meet, count them, sort those counts as numbers biggest first, take the top.
Hone is a place to practise programming. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
Five stages that answer a startling number of questions with nothing changed but the column number.
How to think about it
Build it up one stage at a time and look at each.
Worked example
cut -d' ' -f1 access.logStage one: just the names.
cut -d' ' -f1 access.log | sort | uniq -cGrouped and counted.
cut -d' ' -f1 access.log | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -n 2Ranked and topped. The whole idiom.
Your turn
Rank those counts with the biggest first.
sort app.log | uniq -c | sort
Try it at a real prompt
The trap
Every stage matters and the order is not negotiable. sort before uniq, and -n on the final sort.
Practise the ten commonest values on HoneA question on it now, a coding challenge where there is one, and it is remembered for review. Free, no email needed.