Making the Cut: Slicing Up Text in the Linux CLI

The cut command is one of the fastest ways to pull specific columns out of a delimited text file without opening a spreadsheet or writing a script. If you are parsing log files, CSV exports, or the output of other commands, cut keeps things simple and fast.

Basic Syntax

cut -d DELIMITER -f FIELD_LIST INPUT_FILE

• -d sets the delimiter character (the character that separates fields).
• -f specifies which field(s) to extract, starting at 1.
• You can request multiple fields with a comma-separated list or a range (e.g., -f1,3-5).

Example: Extracting the 7th Field from a Colon-Delimited File

cut -d : -f7 /etc/passwd

Here -d : tells cut that each field is separated by a colon, and -f7 grabs the seventh field (the user’s home directory in /etc/passwd).

Common Variations

# Print fields 1 through 3, tab-delimited
cut -f1-3 file.tsv

# Use a custom delimiter (pipe) and grab field 2
cut -d '|' -f2 data.txt

# Output to a new file instead of stdout
cut -d ',' -f4 input.csv -o output.txt

# Combine with other commands
ps aux | cut -d ' ' -f1,11

Tips

• If you omit -d, cut defaults to a tab delimiter.
• Field numbers are 1-based, not 0-based.
• cut works on any text stream, so piping it into or out of other commands is a natural fit.
• For more complex parsing (quoting, escaped delimiters), consider awk or a small Python one-liner instead.

• How-To

• Bash
• SysAdmin