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  • What do you mean by "sorted"? According to which criteria are the files sorted? And are the files manipulated after the sorting, or is this just temporary? Commented Sep 3, 2020 at 11:11
  • @X3nion Sorted by the default comparison of the sort command, which is to say a strict byte by byte comparison of the lines. This will probably be the default of any other sorting operation you might apply. The sort command normally reads standard input or one or more files, and outputs sorted lines to standard output, so it does not touch the input files. My comment about "OK to sort them" is more about "if you don't need the unique lines in the order they were in the original file", and that command will not affect the input files in any way. Commented Sep 3, 2020 at 13:15