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 a 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 a

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- a

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 manual page: remove sections from each line of files