coreutils: The cut command

1 
1 The ‘cut’ Command
1 =================
1 
1 The next program we’ll look at is the ‘cut’ command.  This program cuts
1 out columns or fields of input data.  For example, we can tell it to
1 print just the login name and full name from the ‘/etc/passwd’ file.
1 The ‘/etc/passwd’ file has seven fields, separated by colons:
1 
1      arnold:xyzzy:2076:10:Arnold D. Robbins:/home/arnold:/bin/bash
1 
1    To get the first and fifth fields, we would use ‘cut’ like this:
1 
1      $ cut -d: -f1,5 /etc/passwd
1      ⊣ root:Operator
1      ...
1      ⊣ arnold:Arnold D. Robbins
1      ⊣ miriam:Miriam A. Robbins
1      ...
1 
1    With the ‘-c’ option, ‘cut’ will cut out specific characters (i.e.,
1 columns) in the input lines.  This is useful for input data that has
1 fixed width fields, and does not have a field separator.  For example,
1 list the Monday dates for the current month:
1 
1      $ cal | cut -c 3-5
1      ⊣Mo
1      ⊣
1      ⊣  6
1      ⊣ 13
1      ⊣ 20
1      ⊣ 27
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