The cut command extracts data between character locations or columns. You can specify the delimiter that separates each column. In the cut terminology, each column is known as a field.

1. The -f option defines the fields to extract:

        cut -f FIELD_LIST filename

FIELD_LIST is a list of columns that are to be displayed. The list consists of column numbers delimited by commas. Consider this example:

        $ cut -f 2,3 filename

Here, the second and the third columns are displayed.

2. The cut command also reads input from stdin.

Tab is the default delimiter for fields. Lines without delimiters will be printed. The -s option will disable printing lines without delimiter characters. The following commands demonstrate extracting columns from a tab delimited file:

        $ cat student_data.txt 
        No  Name  Mark  Percent
        1  Sarath  45  90
        2  Alex  49  98
        3  Anu  45  90

        $ cut -f1 student_data.txt
        No 
        1 
        2 
        3 

3. To extract multiple fields provide multiple field numbers separated by commas, using the following options:

        $ cut -f2,4 student_data.txt
        Name     Percent
        Sarath   90
        Alex     98
        Anu      90

4. The --complement option will display all the fields except those defined by -f. This command displays all fields except 3:

        $ cut -f3 --complement student_data.txt
        No  Name    Percent 
        1   Sarath  90
        2   Alex    98
        3   Anu     90

5. The -d option will set the delimiter. The following command shows how to use cut with a colon-separated list:

        $ cat delimited_data.txt
        No;Name;Mark;Percent
        1;Sarath;45;90
        2;Alex;49;98
        3;Anu;45;90

        $ cut -f2 -d";" delimited_data.txt
        Name
        Sarath
        Alex
        Anu