sed is a stream editor. 

A stream editor is used to perform basic text transformations on an input stream (a file or input from a pipeline). 

While in some ways similar to an editor which permits scripted edits (such as ed), sed works by making only one pass over the input(s), and is consequently more efficient. 

But it is sed’s ability to filter text in a pipeline which particularly distinguishes it from other types of editors.

wc (short for word count) is a command in Unix, Plan 9, Inferno, and Unix-like operating systems. 

The program reads either standard input or a list of computer files and generates one or more of the following statistics: newline count, word count, and byte count.

If a list of files is provided, both individual file and total statistics follow.

AWK (awk)is a domain-specific language designed for text processing and typically used as a data extraction and reporting tool. Like sed and grep, it's a filter, and is a standard feature of most Unix-like operating systems.

The AWK language is a data-driven scripting language consisting of a set of actions to be taken against streams of textual data – either run directly on files or used as part of a pipeline – for purposes of extracting or transforming text, such as producing formatted reports. 

The language extensively uses the string datatype, associative arrays (that is, arrays indexed by key strings), and regular expressions. While AWK has a limited intended application domain and was especially designed to support one-liner programs, the language is Turing-complete, and even the early Bell Labs users of AWK often wrote well-structured large AWK programs.

SORT command is used to sort a file, arranging the records in a particular order. By default, the sort command sorts file assuming the contents are ASCII. Using options in sort command, it can also be used to sort numerically.

SORT command sorts the contents of a text file, line by line.

sort is a standard command line program that prints the lines of its input or concatenation of all files listed in its argument list in sorted order.

The sort command is a command line utility for sorting lines of text files. It supports sorting alphabetically, in reverse order, by number, by month and can also remove duplicates.

The sort command can also sort by items not at the beginning of the line, ignore case sensitivity and return whether a file is sorted or not. Sorting is done based on one or more sort keys extracted from each line of input.

By default, the entire input is taken as sort key. Blank space is the default field separator.