UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi!
i want to extract from /etc/passwd file,the user and user info fileds, to a another file.I've tried this:

Code:

cut -d ':' -f1 ':' -f6 < file

but cut can be used to extract olny one field and not two.
maybe with awk is this possible?

cut can cut multiple fields. I.e.

Code:

cut -d: -f1,3,5 file

Or with awk:

Code:

awk -F: '{ print $1, $3 }' file

oh thank you very much!

Hi,

Can we assign each fields to variables by the same 'awk' command??

Thanks.

Hi.
As Scott noted this is not usually the case, and is contrary to every man page on cut that I have seen.

This suggests to me that you did not look at man cut or that you did not understand it.

Your best first step to becoming self-sufficient for *nix support is to cultivate the habit of looking at man pages. On some systems, additional information is available by looking at info pages, for example info cut. The man pages often are not tutorials, but, notwithstanding how good responses here here at unix.com are, man pages are certainly a better initial action to get factual answers rather than spending time composing forum posts and waiting for responses. The next step is searching, using Google, for example.

Best wishes on advancing your *nix knowledge ... cheers, drl