🖥️cut

➡️This is a command-line reference manual for commands and command combinations that you don’t use often enough to remember it. This cheatsheet explains the cut command with important options and switches using examples.

  4 minute read  

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# cut - select columns of text from each line of a file
# if you're needing more comprehensive pattern-directed 
# scanning and processing, take a look at `awk`

# Given a text file (file.txt) with the following text:
# unix or linux os
# is unix good os
# is linux good os

# cut will return the fourth element if given:
cut -c4 file.txt
x
u
l

# cut will return the fourth and sixth element if given:
cut -c4,6 file.txt
xo
ui
ln

# cut will return the fourth through seventh element if given:
cut -c4-7 file.txt
x or
unix
linu

# to use cut like `awk` you could do the following to return the 
# second element, delimetered by a space:
cut -d' ' -f2 file.txt
or
unix
linux

# in the same way as above you can modify -f to return varying results:
cut -d' ' -f2,3 file.txt
or linux
unix good
linux good
                                          
# To cut out the third field of text or stdoutput that is delimited by a #:
cut -d# -f3

#==============================#
# CMD CUT
#==============================##==============================#
cut -c 1-$COLUMNS file
# trim output data width of file to the exact width of your terminal.

cut -d, -f1,5,10-15 data.csv > new.csv
# Use cut to print out columns 1, 5 and 10 through 15 in data.csv and write that to new.csv

cut -d: -f1-2 messages | uniq -c 
# count hits per minute in your messages log file. Useful when you get "slammed" to do stats.

cut -c 1-80 file 
# trim output data width of file to 80 characters per line.

# Find video files cached by the flash plugin in browsers
file /proc/*/fd/* 2>/dev/null | grep Flash | cut -f1 -d:

# Explanation: Recent versions of the flash plugin hide the temporary file by marking it deleted. Practically the video stream is downloaded to a "deleted file". However, even when a file is deleted, if the file is opened by a process then you can find its file descriptor and consequently the file contents.

# This simple script prints out the file descriptors of opened Flash videos:
file /proc/*/fd/* 2>/dev/null | grep Flash | cut -f1 -d:

# And, you probably want to create a regular file from the file descriptor, for example:
cp $(file /proc/*/fd/* 2>/dev/null | grep Flash | cut -f1 -d: | head -n 1) video.avi

# Otherwise the file descriptor is not very convenient (remember, it's a deleted file!) The method should work regardless of your browser.

# In a list of files and folders with folders ending with /, count the number of folders below each 3-levels-deep subdirs. Helps determine where things are organized the most.
grep "/$" filefolderlist.txt | cut -d/ -f1-3 | sort | uniq -c 

# I have needed to do this before. This fixes the file names:
length=5 # longest integer
for i in [0-9]*.png
do
    number=$(printf "%0*d\n" $length $(echo $i|cut -f1 -d'.'))
    suffix=$(echo $i|cut -f2 -d'.')
    echo $number'.'$suffix  " <- " $i
done|sort -n

# Make dotfile links
#!/bin/sh
MY_PATH='sdcard/repo/dotfiles/'; 
for file in ./sdcard/repo/dotfiles/; 
do 
    MY_FILE=`echo $file | rev | cut -f1 -d'/' | rev` ;
    echo "ln -s $MY_PATH$MY_FILE .$MY_FILE";
done 

#==============================##==============================#
# CMD cut						       #
#==============================##==============================#

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