UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi
I ‘m trying to write a simple script that will be able to extract some useful info from a file of this format:

+ 1.84375 0 2 cbr 210 ------- 0 0.0 3.1 225 610
- 1.84375 0 2 cbr 210 ------- 0 0.0 3.1 225 610
r 1.84471 2 1 cbr 210 ------- 1 3.0 1.0 195 600
r 1.84566 2 0 ack 40 ------- 2 3.2 0.1 82 602
+ 1.84566 0 2 tcp 1000 ------- 2 0.1 3.2 102 611
- 1.84566 0 2 tcp 1000 ------- 2 0.1 3.2 102 611
r 1.84609 0 2 cbr 210 ------- 0 0.0 3.1 225 610
+ 1.84609 2 3 cbr 210 ------- 0 0.0 3.1 225 610
d 1.84609 2 3 cbr 210 ------- 0 0.0 3.1 225 610
- 1.8461 2 3 cbr 210 ------- 0 0.0 3.1 192 511
r 1.84612 3 2 cbr 210 ------- 1 3.0 1.0 196 603
+ 1.84612 2 1 cbr 210 ------- 1 3.0 1.0 196 603
- 1.84612 2 1 cbr 210 ------- 1 3.0 1.0 196 603
+ 1.84625 3 2 cbr 210 ------- 1 3.0 1.0 199 612

For example I want to extract the information in column 18-22 but say only the number values (not necessarily all at once).
Using cut utility (i.e. cut -d 18-22 filename) I get

210
210
210
40 -
1000
1000
210
210
210
210
210
210
210
210
But I only need the value without the - character
In other word for each line I need the field value and I cant use [ cut -f ] because there only separated by spaces.
Any ideas or know of a good Unix tutorial for beginners.
Thanks

cut -d" " -f 6 file1 using cut ....

awk -F" " '{ print $6 }' file1 using awk ...

thanks man very useful, but say i wanna add them all together how do i do that ?

awk '
BEGIN { sum=0 ; } { sum+=$1 } END { print sum }' x


where x contains all these numbers.

many megabits
thx

I am new to awk.

Bhargav, how do you get those numbers stored in variable x?
Because I am on track something similar to this, where I am interested in numbers in a line present at even location.

And this array x need to be populated with unique values.

Also, please feel free to suggest me good links to start with learning awk & sed. So far to my observation they are powerful in terms of their usage in shell script.

x is the file there from previous o/p.
redirect previous awk to file "x" as follows

awk -F" " '{ print $6 }' file1 > x

and continue with next step ....

awk '
BEGIN { sum=0 ; } { sum+=$1 } END { print sum }' x