The "cut" Utility
July 19, 1998
The cut utility
allows you to cut a specified bit of data from a file. The most
common usage is to split delimited lines such that the command
returns a given field for each row.
The "cut" utility follows the basic syntax shown below:
cut -c[character_position] filelist
or
cut -f[fields] -d[field separator] filelist
Consider the cut operation
applied to the password file in which we direct the utility
to return the 3rd field as delimited by the colon character.
![[cut Example]](Images/cut.gif)
| Options |
Description |
| -c[character_position] |
Specifies the character positions to cut out. It can be a comma
delimited list, a dash specified range, or both such as
1,2,3 6-10,18 |
| -f[fields] |
Specifies the fields that should be cut out
provided you also specify a delimiter. This does not work with the
-c option and vice versa. |
| -d[delimiter] |
The character that delimits fields |
| -s |
Specifies that if the specified delimiter does not appear in
the line, that the line should not be included im the cut. |
Below are some more examples of using cut. Notice
that by default cut expects a tab character or space as a delimiter
so no delimiter need be specified if your file is already delimited
by a space character or tab.
![[cut Example]](Images/cut1.gif)
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