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nth Columns in a Tab delimited file

 
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# 1  
Old 02-26-2010
nth Columns in a Tab delimited file
Hi

Can anyone help me to identify the nth field from a Tab delimited file?

Thanks
Subrat
# 2  
Old 02-26-2010
Using cut command you can identify a particular field for the specified delimiter.

General format:

Code:
cut -d"<delimter>" -f"<field_number>" filename

# 3  
Old 02-26-2010
You need to specify the tab delimiter by the -d option.

But you can not hit tab key because shell will not accept tab key. Also you can not give '\t' as its argument.Because cut -d expects a single character as its argument.

To give tab stop in the shell you just hit ctrl+v and ctrl+i


Code:
cut -d '     '  -f 4 file # Here the tab given inside the single quotes by using ctrl+v and ctrl+i

# 4  
Old 02-26-2010
Try awk:

awk '{ print $4 }' file
# 5  
Old 02-26-2010
Data
I tried all your suggestion.. but unfortunatly none of them worked .
# 6  
Old 02-26-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by subrat
I tried all your suggestion.. but unfortunatly none of them worked .
Can you execute the below command and paste the output?

Code:
 
cat -vet file

# 7  
Old 02-26-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by dennis.jacob
Try awk:

awk '{ print $4 }' file
This should work. What is the error ur getting please post it.

---------- Post updated at 03:04 PM ---------- Previous update was at 02:59 PM ----------

may be u try with

Code:
 
awk -F "  " '{ print $4 }' file.

here " " is tabkey
 
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