The cut command (GNU Coreutils 9.0)
From Get docs
Coreutils/docs/latest/The-cut-command
Next: The sort command, Previous: The who command, Up: Opening the software toolbox [Contents][Index]
The cut Command
The next program we’ll look at is the cut
command. This program cuts out columns or fields of input data. For example, we can tell it to print just the login name and full name from the /etc/passwd
file. The /etc/passwd
file has seven fields, separated by colons:
arnold:xyzzy:2076:10:Arnold D. Robbins:/home/arnold:/bin/bash
To get the first and fifth fields, we would use cut
like this:
$ cut -d: -f1,5 /etc/passwd -| root:Operator … -| arnold:Arnold D. Robbins -| miriam:Miriam A. Robbins …
With the -c
option, cut
will cut out specific characters (i.e., columns) in the input lines. This is useful for input data that has fixed width fields, and does not have a field separator. For example, list the Monday dates for the current month:
$ cal | cut -c 3-5 -|Mo -| -| 6 -| 13 -| 20 -| 27