UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have a file with approximately 262,000 fields and I want to split it according to pairs of fields. The fields have headers and I want to create smaller files with just the columns between the fields (specified fields inclusive).

For example, I just want the columns "set" and "test", with the columns in between (which turn out to be just, the "id" column):

probe set id test test1
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5

to get:

set id test
2 3 4
2 3 4
2 3 4
2 3 4
2 3 4
2 3 4


I know this would be easy with the "cut" command if I knew the field numbers, but I only know the field names, so I have to cut according to the field name.

Suggestions are much appreciated.

Did you try


cat filename |cut -d" " -f2,3,4


The delimiter is " " a space, and fields are the columns for which you wish to select

Another one:

Code:

awk  'NR==1{ for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) ($i==s) ? n=i : ($i==e) ? m=i : l }
           { for(i=n;i<=m;i++) printf $i FS; print l}' s="set" e="test"  file

Use gawk if you can ( mawk fails - max no. of fields 32767 ), on Solaris use nawk.

Thank you!!