easily extract a column of data from multiple columns

October 2nd, 2006 mysurface Posted in cut, Misc, pipeline, Text Manipulation, xargs | Hits: 77784 | 3 Comments »

To extract a column of data from multiple column, we can use cut. Usually cut use to extract value from huge trace file or data file such as /etc/passwd.

To extract all available user name from /etc/passwd, you can do this

cut -d":" -f1 /etc/passwd

Cut extract value line by line, to put all into 1 line, you can use xargs

cut -d":" -f1 /etc/passwd | xargs echo
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3 Responses to “easily extract a column of data from multiple columns”

  1. toydi Says:
    October 2nd, 2006 at 7:26 pm

    Thanks! It’s very useful to extract data.

  2. how to wget flv from youtube » Linux by Examples Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 2:01 am

    [...] Check out command cut for usage examples. [...]

  3. Lawrence Nittler Says:
    February 9th, 2011 at 11:16 am

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