Unix cut command: Reference and Examples

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Split by space

-f index starts at 1!

To split by one or more spaces, use tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f to replace multiple spaces with a single one and then use cut:

$ echo "foo     bar   baz" | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f2
# outputs "bar"

Custom delimiter

-f index starts at 1!

Template cut -d<delimiter> -f<part-to-extract>

Example: split the string "fooXbarXbaz" and extract parts

• Extract the first part

  $ echo "fooXbarXbaz" | cut -d'X' -f1
  # outputs "foo"
  

• Extract the sixth part (ERROR)

  $ echo "fooXbarXbaz" | cut -d'X' -f6
  # outputs nothing because there aren't 6 parts available
  

Split output of ls

Original output of ls -lha

$ ls -lha ~/ | grep profile
-rw-rw-r--   1 felipe felipe  200 Abr 21  2017 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--   1 felipe felipe 1000 Jul  5 05:21 .profile

Example: Extract the month name (6th block, so use -f6)

$ ls -lha ~/ | grep profile | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f6
Abr
Jul