Re: you are not going to be able to sort this by the fifth field.

[jidanni]

Thanks. I see I neglected the -b.
On the info page in the `--field-separator=SEPARATOR' discussion, do
mention the effects of -b on ' foo' etc.
PB> $ LC_CTYPE=C sort --debug -sb -k5,5 < taichung_county_atm.htm
(Use .txt, not .htms in examples.)
Anyway, your --debug stuff would be clearer with just pipes added
inline:
$ echo 'a   b c'|sort --debug=show_fields
a|   b| c
or something like that.