Cutting Columns: cut

The cut command extracts portions of each line: specific columns or character positions. It is perfect for structured data like CSVs or colon-separated files.

Cutting by delimiter and field with -d and -f

cut -d: -f1 crew_roster.txt

This splits each line on : and prints only field 1. Given a line like Voss:Commander:Deck1, it outputs Voss.

You can select multiple fields:

cut -d: -f1,3 crew_roster.txt

Output: Voss:Deck1 (fields 1 and 3).

Cutting by character position with -c

cut -c1-4 codes.txt

This prints characters 1 through 4 of each line, useful for fixed-width data.

In a pipeline

cat data.csv | cut -d, -f2

Extracts the second comma-separated column from a CSV stream.

Mission: Cargo Manifest Quick-List

The supply shuttle is docking in minutes and the deck officer needs a plain list of item names from manifest.csv: no quantities, no destinations, just the items.

1. Use cut to extract only the item names (field 1) from the comma-delimited manifest.csv, and display them.
2. Save that item list into a new file called item-list.txt.
3. Create a folder called deck-office and move item-list.txt into it.
4. Count how many items ended up on the list.

Expected result

deck-office/item-list.txt holds the five item names, one per line, with no other columns.