UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

how do you show just the used disk space. using the cut and df command?? or does anyone have any other suggestions on how to do it a better way?

Why do you need to use cut? It's not really the best tool. Awk is more suitable for this...
Unless this is homework, in which case you'd have to use cut if that's what's being asked...

lol no this is homework...thanks

These forums aren't really for homework solutions (see the FAQ) but I'm sure the mods won't mind if we give you a pointer in the right direction...

You can tell df which filesystem you want, thus preventing it listing every filesystem on the server.

man df for more info

cut can split up a line of input based on a bunch of different parameters.
You can look for seperator chartacters (such as a : in /etc/passwd for example) which is what most people use it for, but it also will split on byte or character position.

As the output from df is a table, and the interesting numbers are in predictable positions, you can use cut to pick out the part of the output that you want.

man cut to get the details on it's various commandline arguments.

If you feel like having some fun, you could tell your teacher that they are using the wrong tool for the job and awk is better for this (but you'd better be prepared to say why )