 | Chapter 35 You Can't Quite Call This Editing |  |
| Chapter 35 You Can't Quite Call This Editing | |
| cut+paste | System V includes a nifty command called cut that lets you select a list of columns or fields from one or more files. We've also included a public-domain version on the disc, for those of you whose systems do without. |
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You must specify either the -c option to cut by column or -f to cut by fields. (Fields are separated by tabs unless you specify a different field separator with -d. Use quotes (8.14) if you want a space or other special character as the delimiter.)
The column(s) or field(s) to cut must follow the option immediately,
without any space.
Use a comma between separate values
and a hyphen to specify a range (e.g., 1-10, 15, 20, or 50-).
cut is incredibly handy. Here are some examples:
Find out who is logged in, but list only login names:
who | % |
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Extract usernames and real names from /etc/passwd (36.3):
%cut -d: -f1,5 /etc/passwd
Cut characters in the fourth column of file, and paste them back as the first column in the same file:
paste | % |
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- ,
|  | |
| 35.13 Other Conversions with dd |  | 35.15 Cutting Columns with colrm |
