What are best practices for using uniq command?

The uniq command in Linux is a powerful utility for filtering out repeated lines from sorted files. To use it effectively, consider the following best practices:

• Always sort before using: Since uniq only removes adjacent duplicates, it's important to use the sort command before uniq to ensure all duplicate entries are next to each other.
• Use options wisely: Familiarize yourself with the various options of uniq, like -c to count occurrences, -d to display only duplicates, and -u for displaying unique lines.
• Check input files: Ensure your input files are formatted correctly, as uniq does not modify files directly and will only process standard input or files provided explicitly.
• Pipe and combine: Use uniq in combination with other commands like grep, awk, or cut for more advanced text processing tasks.
• Redirect output: When working with large outputs, redirect the output of uniq to a new file for easier analysis and review.