Cut (Unix)

In computing, cut is a Unix command line utility which is used to extract sections from each line of input — usually from a file.

Extraction of line segments can typically be done by bytes (-b), characters (-c), or fields (-f) separated by a delimiter (-d — the tab character by default). A range must be provided in each case which consists of one of N, N-M, N- (N to the end of the line), or -M (beginning of the line to M).

Examples

Assuming a file named file containing the lines:

foo:bar:baz:qux:quux one:two:three:four:five:six:seven alpha:beta:gamma:delta:epsilon:zeta:eta:teta:iota:kappa:lambda:mu

To output the fourth through tenth characters of each line:

% cut -c 4-10 file

This gives the output:

:bar:ba :two:th ha:beta

To output the fifth field through the end of the line of each line using the colon character as the field delimiter:

% cut -d : -f 5- file

This gives the output:

quux five:six:seven epsilon:zeta:eta:teta:iota:kappa:lambda:mu

See also

*List of Unix programs
*grep
*paste

External links

*man|cu|cut|SUS|cut out selected fields of each line of a file
* [http://linux.die.net/man/1/cut "cut" manual page: remove sections from each line of files] .