On Thu, Sep 21, 2006, Freddie Cash wrote: >On Tue, September 19, 2006 4:49 pm, Matt Emmerton wrote: >>> On Tue, September 19, 2006 9:26 am, SigmaX asdf wrote: >>>> I have a series of comma-delimited text files with fourteen >>>> columns of data and several hundred rows. I want to use a short >>>> shell script to strip them of the last 9 columns, leaving the same >>>> file but with just five of its columns. I can do it in C++, but >>>> that seems like overkill. How would I go about doing it with sed >>>> or a similar utility? > >>> cat file | awk -F"," '{ printf "%s,%s,%s,%s,%s\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5 >>> }' > newfile > >> What's wrong with this? >> cat file | cut -f-5 -c';' > newfile > >[shrug] It uses cut, which I've never used or even heard of??? :)
I strongly recommend getting a copy of the book ``Unix Text Processing'' by Dougherty and O'Reilly which is far and away the best I've seen for using UNIX tools. I think it's out of print, and hard copies are probably found at http://www.bookfinder.com/ There's also a free PDF version available from O'Reilly. Bill -- INTERNET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bill Campbell; Celestial Systems, Inc. UUCP: camco!bill PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way FAX: (206) 232-9186 Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676 URL: http://www.celestial.com/ When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough. -- H.L. Mencken, ``Minority Report'' _______________________________________________ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"