To display the top 15 processes sorted by memory use in descending order, do:
# top -b -o +%MEM | head -n 22
As opposed to the previous tip, here you have to use +%MEM (note the plus sign) to sort the output in descending order:
From the command above, the option:
-b : runs top in batch mode
-o : used to specify fields for sorting processes
head utility displays the first few lines of a file and
the -n option is used to specify the number of lines to be displayed.