Using cut command to remove multiple columns

Question

given input    echo 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9    100    If I want to cut columns 5  I can do   cut -d  -f-4 6-   what if I want to cut multiple non consecutive columns like 5  7 etc is there a one liner

User · Answer

The same could be done with Perl
Because it uses 0-based-indexing instead of 1-based-indexing, the field values are offset by 1

perl -F, -lane 'print join ",", @F[1..3,5..9,11..19]'

is equivalent to:

cut -d, -f2-4,6-10,12-20

If the commas are not needed in the output:

perl -F, -lane 'print "@F[1..3,5..9,11..19]"'

User · Answer

You are able to cut all odd even columns by using seq   This would print all odd columns  echo 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10   cut -d  -f  seq -s  1 2 10    To print all even columns you could use  echo 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10   cut -d  -f  seq -s  2 2 10    By changing the second number of seq you can specify which columns to be printed   If the specification which columns to print is more complex you could also use a  one-liner-if-clause  like  echo 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10   cut -d  -f  for i in   seq 1 10   do if     i -lt 10  amp  amp   i -lt 5    then echo -n  i   else echo -n  i fi done    This would print all columns from 1 to 5 - you can simply modify the conditions to create more complex conditions to specify weather a column shall be printed

User · Answer

Sometimes it s easier to think in terms of which fields to exclude   If the number of fields not being cut  not being retained in the output  is small  it may be easier to use the --complement flag  e g  to include all fields 1-20 except not 3  7  and 12 -- do this   cut -d  --complement -f3 7 12  lt inputfile   Rather than  cut -d  -f-2 4-6 8-11 13-

User · Answer

You should be able to continue the sequences directly in your existing -f specification   To skip both 5 and 7  try   cut -d  -f-4 6-6 8-   As you re skipping a single sequential column  this can also be written as   cut -d  -f-4 6 8-   To keep it going  if you wanted to skip 5  7  and 11  you would use   cut -d  -f-4 6-6 8-10 12-   To put it into a more-clear perspective  it is easier to visualize when you use starting ending columns which go on the beginning end of the sequence list  respectively  For instance  the following will print columns 2 through 20  skipping columns 5 and 11   cut -d  -f2-4 6-10 12-20   So  this will print  2 through 4   skip 5   6 through 10   skip 11  and then  12 through 20

[bash] Using cut command to remove multiple columns

Examples related to bash

Examples related to cut