Cut command

shweta_babbar · #1 (**permalink**) 10-16-2009

Code:

$ cut -d\| -f 2,3 shortlist | tee cutlist1

dr.house · #2 (**permalink**) 10-16-2009

I daresay this means that the pipe following ought to be used not as pipe but as delimiter, or, how I would code it:

Code:

cut -d '|' -f 2,3 shortlist | tee cutlist1

douglas.pavey · #3 (**permalink**) 10-23-2009

The full explaination is that the \ acts as an escape, which turns off shell translation of the next character, so, in your example, | isn't handled by the shell as the pipe, but as a character. Putting single quotes around it is a bit more straightforward and lends more to readability by humans, as the previous poster, "DR House" recommended.

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