The cut command

The cut command is used to extract specified columns/characters of a piece of text, which is given as follows:

• -c: Specifies the filtering of characters
• -d: Specifies the delimiter for fields
• -f: Specifies the field number

The following are a few examples that show the usage of the cut command:

• Using the next command, from the /etc/passwd file, fields 1 and 3 will be displayed. The display will contain the login name and user ID. We use the -d: option to specify that the field or columns are separated by a colon (:):

   $ cut -d: -f1,3 /etc/passwd

• Using this command, from the /etc/passwd file, the fields 1 to 5 will be displayed. The display will contain the login name, encrypted password, user ID, group ID, and user name:

    $ cut -d: -f1-5 /etc/passwd

• This command will show characters 1 to 3 and 8 to 12 from the emp.lst file:

    $ cut -c1-3,8-12 /home/student/emp.lst

• The output of the date command is sent as an input to the cut command and only the first three characters are printed on screen, which is shown as follows:

    $ date | cut -c1-3
    Mon