Cut command in Linux (cut by columns) [Basic Guide]

The cut command in Linux literally translated means cut. It reads the content of one or more files and outputs a vertical column.

Your most frequent options are:

• -b number: Prints a vertical list with the number byte (from left to right);
• -c number: Prints a vertical list with the number character (from left to right);
• -d delimiter: Configures the delimiter that separates one column from another. The default is the Tab;
• -f number: Prints column number.

Examples:

To get only user account logins from the /etc/passwd file, using cut. In this case the delimiter will be the “:” and the first column.

$ cut —d”:” -f 1 /etc/passwd

To take just the first byte of the /etc/passwd file:

$ cut —b 1 /etc/passwd

To get group names:

$ cat /etc/group | cut -f1 -d': '

The cut command works just like the awk command. The following example produces the same result as the previous command:

$ awk -F': '' {print $1} '/etc/group

Uirá Endy Ribeiro

Uirá Endy Ribeiro is a Software Developer and Cloud Computing Architect with a 23-year career. He has master's degrees in computer science and fifteen IT certifications and is the author of 11 books recognized in the IT world market. He is also Director at Universidade Salgado de Oliveira and Director of the Linux Professional Institute - LPI Director's Board.