`cut` pick columns from each line

cut extracts columns from each line, either by delimiter-separated field number or by character position. It is simpler and faster than awk when all you need is a column or two.

Availability Preinstalled on macOS, Linux and BSD

Syntax

cut -d delimiter -f fields [file ...]

Common options

Option	What it does
`-d C`	Use the character C as the field delimiter (default: tab)
`-f LIST`	Fields to keep, such as 1,3 or 2-4
`-c LIST`	Character positions to keep, such as 1-10

Examples

First and third CSV columns

cut -d, -f1,3 simple.csv

User names from /etc/passwd

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

First 10 characters of each line

cut -c1-10 app.log

Use cut with sqx

Take a column from sqx output

TSV output works with cut's default tab delimiter.

sqx -f users=users.csv -o tsv -no-output-header "SELECT id, email FROM users" | cut -f2

Use sqx when the CSV has quoted fields

cut splits on every comma, even inside quotes. sqx parses CSV properly and selects columns by name.

sqx -f users=users.csv "SELECT name, email FROM users"

Full documentation

This page covers the essentials. For every option, see the official documentation:

Or read the manual in your terminal: man cut

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cut pick columns from each line