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cut Command on Linux: Extract Columns from CSV and Log Files

· dinesh
cut command linux - custom-cut-featured.png

The cut command on Linux is one of the most searched text tools — fast column extraction without opening a spreadsheet. It works on delimited files (CSV, TSV, /etc/passwd) and fixed-width logs when you know character positions.

Related: awk & sed,
grep,
read CSV in bash.

Delimiter fields

Use -d for the separator and -f for field numbers (1-based).

bashpasswd usernames
cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd | head
cut -d
-f fields

CSV columns

Quote handling is limited — for messy CSV prefer csvkit or a small Python script.

bashcsv
cut -d, -f1,3 report.csv
CSV
comma

Character ranges

-c cuts by position; useful for legacy fixed-width exports.

bashchars
echo 'ABCDEF' | cut -c1-3
cut -c
fixed width

Pipeline tips

Pair with sort and uniq -c for top-N reports from access logs.

TipUse --complement to keep all fields except those listed when you need “everything but column 2”.
sort
uniq

Quick Reference

  • Fields: cut -dDELIM -fN
  • Chars: cut -cN-M
  • Logs: pipe from grep first to shrink input

Related tutorials

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