UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi. I am trying for about 2 hours now, it is driving me nuts.. i have a string with names and numbers, i want to use cut (no other, it is supposed to be done with cut) to cut away all numbers.

sounds simple, but i have no idea how to get cut to work, over the whole internet there is only help for cutting away fixed characters.

But since the length of my numbers vary this is no option.
And there seems to be no real text on how to use the cut commands

Example:

Code:

123 hello 321 no 345 he 145 the    
# cat $string | cut -d[0-9]
hello no he the

maybe someone can tell me how to use the -f and -d or -c in cut i don't get it..

You cannot do this with cut. use a different tool/program.

And ... you cannot "cat $string". Hard to tell the intention from faulty code, but did you mean?:

Code:

string="123 hello 321 no 345 he 145 the"
echo "${string}" | tr -d '0-9'


 hello  no  he  the

Ps. It might be possible (but ridiculously labour-intensive) to remove numbers with just "cut" but we would need a definitive before and after example to work out what you are trying to do.

Please post what Operating System you are running and what Shell you are using.

Thanks for the answer, but:

copied from the exercise sheet

the numbers are repetition counts. This is why i am searching for a way to make it with cut

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Sry, i only tried to explain what it should do, not actually write code.

Sure i cannot cat a String, that was supposed to be $1 instead of $string.