cut

cut is a filter utility which is used to cut out columns or fields from every line of a file.  A field is generally separated through a tab character (default delimiter), but it can also be delimited through any other character.

Syntax

cut -c columnlist [ file ... ]

cut -f fieldlist [ -d delim ] [ -s ] [ file ... ]

where  list is a  comma-separated or   blank-character-separated list  of  integer  field  numbers  (in increasing order), with optional - to  denotes  ranges  (for instance,  1,4,7; 1-3,8; -5,10 (short for 1-5,10); or 3- (short for third through last field)).

-c list,  the list following -c specifies character positions (for instance, -c1-72 would pass the first 72 characters of each line).

-f list,   the list following -f is a list of fields supposed to be separated in the file through a delimiter character.

-d delimiter, the character following -d is the field delimiter (-f option only). Default is tab. other characters or Space along with special meaning to the shell must be quoted. A Delimiter can be a multi-byte character.

Practice 1

Let Consider the file names containing the following information

Pat       Gaja                 22        C++

Tedd    Boycott           34        ORVB

Anju    Ahuja              25        C++

Hema   Malini              27        DBA

Raju     Naidu              31        ORVB

Sonu    Misra               28        ORVB

The given example displays the usage of the cut command.

# cut -f 2, 4 names

Gaja                 C++

Boycott           ORVB

Ahuja              C++

Malini              DBA

Naidu              ORVB

Misra               ORVB

In the given example the second, fourth fields are cut from the file by using the cut command.