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"cut" problem with leading spaces

 
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# 1  
Old 04-15-2009
"cut" problem with leading spaces
I'm trying to use the cut command on the following output to remove the first 2 columns (this is output of "find -ls", if anyone wondering, which for some bizarre reason inserts leading spaces on AIX):

file.txt:

Code:
   16    4 -rw-r--r--  1 root      tech          3186 Apr 15 04:00 ./file1
 2140    0 -rw-r--r--  1 root      security         0 Apr 15 06:30 ./file2
 2141   18 -rw-r--r--  1 root      security     18126 Apr 15 09:00 ./file3
 1072    1 -rw-r--r--  1 root      tech           112 Apr 15 09:00 ./file4
  637   15 -rwxr-----  1 root      system       14515 Apr 15 12:08 ./file5
   18    2 -rwxr-x---  1 root      tech          1977 Apr 15 12:16 ./file6
 1140    1 -rw-r--r--  1 root      tech           128 Apr 15 09:00 ./file7
 1320    1 -rw-r--r--  1 root      tech            37 Apr 14 14:54 ./file8

output of "cat test.txt | cut -d ' ' -f 3-"

Code:
 16    4 -rw-r--r--  1 root      tech          3186 Apr 15 04:00 ./file1
   0 -rw-r--r--  1 root      security         0 Apr 15 06:30 ./file2
  18 -rw-r--r--  1 root      security     18126 Apr 15 09:00 ./file3
   1 -rw-r--r--  1 root      tech           112 Apr 15 09:00 ./file4
637   15 -rwxr-----  1 root      system       14515 Apr 15 12:08 ./file5
 18    2 -rwxr-x---  1 root      tech          1977 Apr 15 12:16 ./file6
   1 -rw-r--r--  1 root      tech           128 Apr 15 09:00 ./file7
   1 -rw-r--r--  1 root      tech            37 Apr 14 14:54 ./file8

Seems like the leading spaces are causing this problem. Is there a workaround to this as far as cut is concerned? Perhaps it's easier to just remove the leading spaces (not sure how to do it), any help will be appreciated.
# 2  
Old 04-15-2009
You have more than one space as a field separator,
you may consider using another tool:

Code:
sed 's/\( *[^ ]* *\)\{2\}//' infile

Last edited by radoulov; 04-15-2009 at 02:18 PM.. Reason: 3 -> 2
# 3  
Old 04-15-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by radoulov
You have more than one space as a field separator,
you may consider using another tool:

Code:
sed 's/\( *[^ ]* *\)\{2\}//' infile

This isn't working, I'm just getting the file content.

I'm guessing I just need a regular expression to cut out the leading spaces. I came up with this monstrosity, there's gotta be a better way to do this:

Code:
cat test.txt | sed 's/^ *//' | cut -d " " -f 2- | sed 's/^ *//' | cut -d " " -f 2-

I'm doing it twice because the second column has the same problem.
# 4  
Old 04-15-2009
As I already said it's not because of the leading but because of the multiple spaces. I suppose that the sed implementation you're using does not support re-interval, try this instead:
Code:
sed 's/ *[^ ]* *[^ ]* *//' infile

# 5  
Old 04-15-2009
This one works quite well, thanks! I think I understand what this regular expression does, the first is a bit too advanced for me Smilie
 
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