Cut (Unix)

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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).

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

• List of Unix programs
• grep
• paste

External links

• cut: cut out selected fields of each line of a file – Commands & Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX® Specification, Issue 6 from The Open Group
• cut manual page: remove sections from each line of files.