Sort on a field

empfile
12345,Mary J,HR
34512,J Smith,Admin
34700,A Ryan,Admin
34900,B Wilson,HR
59000,C Diaz,HR

We want to sort the empfile by department (3rd field)

$sort -t, -k3 empfile
34512,J Smith,Admin
34700,A Ryan,Admin
12345,Mary J,HR
34900,B Wilson,HR
59000,C Diaz,HR

Option -t is to indicate field separator which here is comma
Option -k is the key indicating the position to sort on