How to cut by tab character

Question

I want to use cut command to break input into fields and get the second field. cut -f2 -d' ' <--- How can I tell it to use tab instead of space

Birei · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-30 07:42:36Z

up vote 12 down vote accepted

Two ways:

Press Ctrl-v + Tab

cut -f2 -d'   ' infile

or write it like this:

cut -f2 -d$'\t' infile

answered Mar 30 '12 at 7:42

Birei
1,65459

$'' — bash'ism, AFAIR – poige Mar 30 '12 at 11:45

Mikel · Answer 2 · 2012-03-30 13:56:57Z

up vote 13 down vote

Tab is the default.

-d delim
         Use delim as the field delimiter character instead of the tab
         character.

So you should just write

cut -f 2

answered Mar 30 '12 at 13:56

Mikel
13.2k2751

Oops didn't notice that line. – Hasan Khan Mar 30 '12 at 15:54

ipip · Answer 3 · 2012-03-30 11:29:06Z

up vote 0 down vote

awk '{ print $2; }' inputfile

answered Mar 30 '12 at 11:29

ipip
22112

3

That will fail if $1 contains spaces. Specify the field separator. – manatwork Mar 30 '12 at 11:32

If you wish to preserve other whitespace than \t, then it will fail. Otherwise not. – ipip Mar 30 '12 at 12:07

3

@ipip The question specifically mentions tabs instead of spaces. – Burhan Ali Mar 30 '12 at 13:04

3 Answers