Copying columns from two different files and write them to a new file

Question

I found many similar posts but they don't quite work for me. So I am posting this question.

I have a file test1.txt

1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 0
a b c d e

and another file test2.txt

a b c d e f g
h i j k l m n
o p q r s t u 

I want two take the 6th column from test2.txt and the last column from test1.txt and form a new file test3.txt:

f 5
m 0
t e

How can I do that ?

Answer 1

paste test2.txt test1.txt | awk '{print $6, $NF}' >test3.txt

• Redirect output: >test3.txt
• paste merges the lines of the two files side by side
• The result is piped to awk which prints the sixth and last columns

NF (sans dollar sign) is an awk built-in variable which holds the number of fields. As fields are referenced by $expr, the last field can be referenced as $NF.