How to remove a string from a specific column in a file

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1

Hello,
A basic query. How can I remove a string from a specific column.
For example, remove "abcd" just from column 2 in example file:

abcd abcd1
abcd abcd2
abcd abcd3

to get output:

abcd 1
abcd 2
abcd 3

Thank you!:slight_smile:

2

One way:

 awk '{ gsub(/abcd/,"", $2); print } ' filename > newfilename
3

Using Perl one-liner:

perl -pe 's/^([a-z]+).*([0-9]+)/$1 $2/g' file

abcd 1
abcd 2
abcd 3

Too make change to file permanent, add the -i + extension switch to make a backup of the file, then make change to original file.

perl -i.bak -pe 's/^([a-z]+).*([0-9]+)/$1 $2/g' file

Should end up with "file" and "file.bak" which is a backup of the original file. Original "file" now contains:

abcd 1
abcd 2
abcd 3

4

Thanks everyone!

5

cut -c1-5,10- filename

I did this with the following file:
abcd abcd1
abcd abcd14
abcd abcd127

and got
abcd 1
abcd 14
abcd 127