naresh

• May 2nd, 2012

 

cat file_name | awk {print $n} # where N is the column no. and tab is field seperator

cat SO_02052012_2.csv | awk -F; {print $n} # where N is is column no. and semicolon is field seperator

ardiansyah

• Jul 5th, 2012

 

awk {print $n} < filename

where n is the field number

Rudy

• Aug 2nd, 2012

 

Question is without using awk commands, any idea ??????

Sijeesh KT

• Aug 18th, 2012

 

perl -ane print "$F[0]"; < test.txt

You can use this I hope , replace the zero with the column number you want to print.Normally people use cut and awk command for extracting column.

santarvedi

• Oct 30th, 2012

 

i think by modifying the IFS, we can achieve this as follows, i hope this helps.

#take for example there is an entry in /etc/password with this info
santarvedi:x:500:500:santarvedi:/home/santarvedi:/bin/bash

#let me extract my 6th column, ie, my home directory (/home/santarvedi) using the following mode.

santarvedi]$ bk_IFS=$IFS
santarvedi]$ IFS=:
santarvedi]$ set -- $(getent passwd santarvedi)
santarvedi]$ echo $6
santarvedi]$ IFS="$bk_IFS"

Saurabh Mishra

• Jun 3rd, 2014

 

Code
echo "enter the line which is need to fetch"


read n


i=1


while [$i -eq $n]


do


a=`cat file |cut -d " "-f$i`


((i = i+1))


done


echo $a


 

ajay goel

• Jun 15th, 2014

 

grep "pattern" filename | xargs print {$n}

Tigran Petrosyan

• Oct 24th, 2014

 

Code
filename="input.txt"


echo "enter column number"


read n


 


len=`tail $filename |wc -l`


echo $len


for ((i=1; $i<$len; i++))


{


 clmn=set $(sed -n "$i"p $filename); echo $"$n"


 eval $clmn


}

Tigran Petrosyan

• Oct 24th, 2014

 

i=1; while read line; do for word in $line; do if [[ $i -eq 2 ]]; then echo $word; i=1; break; else ((i++)); fi; done; done < input.txt

Nawaz

• Jun 9th, 2017

 

Read the lines by character and count the number of spaces (delimiter). When the count of space (delimiter) is n-1 (keeping in mind you need nth column), print the characters before next space (delimiter).

Praveena Rao

• Oct 24th, 2017

 

This one is for pattern and not file:
var=hello
echo ${var:n:1}

Sonu

• Mar 1st, 2018

 

cat sample.txt | grep -o .$

Ashok

• May 27th, 2018

 

sed -n np file.txt

Sathish Krishnan Venkatachalam

• Aug 7th, 2020

 

I hope the below answer, to retrieve 3rd column without using awk (or) cut, use the following command:
sed s/^(.*) (.*) (.*) (.*)$/3/g file.txt
insert or delete "(.*)" based on which column to be retrieved and change "3" to nth column no.