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), where N and M are counted from 1 (there is no zeroth value). Since version 6, an error is thrown if you include a zeroth value. Prior to this the value was ignored and assumed to be 1.
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
External links
- : cut out selected fields of each line of a file – Commands & Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX® Specification, Issue 7 from The Open Group
- cut manual page: remove sections from each line of files.
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