cut & paste

t_harsha18 · October 2, 2005, 2:22am

hi i am new to shell scripting,
i have been trying to cut columns numbered 1,4 of a file consisiting of 4 columns. Each column is seperated by 2 spaces.
for example:
john 6102097199 tennessee usa
michel 6734590899 texas USA
now, i need to cut the name and country column and paste it in another file.

I used the delimiter with 2 spaces using 'cut' function and pasted using 'paste' function to paste it in another file. But, this did'nt work
CAN ANYONE PLEASE HELP ME OUT WITH THIS?????????????????????

vino · October 2, 2005, 2:39am

Here is an awk solution.

awk '{ print $1,$4 }' entry.txt > output.file

If there are more than 4 columns and the country colume always appears last with name in the first column, then here is a more generalized solution.

awk '{ print $1,$NF }' entry.txt > output.file

vino

futurelet · October 2, 2005, 3:04am

vino:

Here is an awk solution.
awk '{ print $1,$4 }' entry.txt > output.file
If there are more than 4 columns and the country colume always appears last with name in the first column, then here is a more generalized solution.
awk '{ print $1,$NR }' entry.txt > output.file
vino

awk '{ print $1,$NF }' entry.txt > output.file

vino · October 2, 2005, 3:16am

Thanks futurelet! That was a typo. F and R are too close to each other.