Gnu/coreutils/Header-lines

From Get docs

8.3.5 Header lines

The --header option can be used when the files to join have a header line which is not sorted:

$ cat file1
Name     Age
Alice    25
Charlie  34

$ cat file2
Name   Country
Alice  France
Bob    Spain

$ join --header -o auto -e NA -a1 -a2 file1 file2
Name     Age   Country
Alice    25    France
Bob      NA    Spain
Charlie  34    NA

To sort a file with a header line, use GNU sed -u. The following example sort the files but keeps the first line of each file in place:

$ ( sed -u 1q ; sort -k2b,2 ) < file1 > file1.sorted
$ ( sed -u 1q ; sort -k2b,2 ) < file2 > file2.sorted
$ join --header -o auto -e NA -a1 -a2 file1.sorted file2.sorted > file3