8.1 Working With Files
Syntax
cut [options] file
Common Options
-c character_list character positions to select (first character is 1)
-d delimiter field delimiter (defaults to <TAB>)
-f field_list fields to select (first field is 1)
Both the character and field lists may contain comma-separated or blank-character-separated numbers (in increasing order), and may contain a hyphen (-) to indicate a range. Any numbers missing at either before (e.g. -5) or after (e.g. 5-) the hyphen indicates the full range starting with the first, or ending with the last character or field, respectively. Blank-character-separated lists must be enclosed in quotes. The field delimiter should be enclosed in quotes if it has special meaning to the shell, e.g. when specifying a <space> or <TAB> character.
Examples
In these examples we will use the file users:
jdoe John Doe 4/15/96
lsmith Laura Smith 3/12/96
pchen Paul Chen 1/5/96
jhsu Jake Hsu 4/17/96
sphilip Sue Phillip 4/2/96
If you only wanted the username and the user's real name, the cut command could be used to get only that information:
% cut -f 1,2 users
jdoe John Doe
lsmith Laura Smith
pchen Paul Chen
jhsu Jake Hsu
sphilip Sue Phillip
The cut command can also be used with other options. The -c option allows characters to be the selected cut. To select the first 4 characters:
% cut -c 1-4 users
This yields:
jdoe
lsmi
pche
jhsu
sphi
thus cutting out only the first 4 characters of each line.