cut and paste in Bash Scripting - Cheat Sheet & Quick Revision

Recall & Review

beginner

What does the cut command do in bash scripting?

The cut command extracts sections from each line of input, usually by specifying a delimiter and fields or by character positions.

beginner

How do you use paste in bash scripting?

The paste command merges lines of files horizontally, joining corresponding lines from each file separated by a tab or a specified delimiter.

beginner

Example: What does cut -d',' -f2 file.txt do?

It extracts the second field from each line of file.txt, assuming fields are separated by commas.

intermediate

How can you combine cut and paste to rearrange columns?

You can use cut to extract columns from files and then use paste to join those columns side by side in a new order.

beginner

What option in cut lets you select characters instead of fields?

The -c option lets you select specific character positions from each line.

Which cut option extracts fields based on a delimiter?

A -d

B -c

C -s

D -f

The -f option extracts fields based on a delimiter (set with -d or default tab).

What does the paste command do?

A Joins lines from multiple files horizontally

B Sorts lines alphabetically

C Deletes lines from a file

D Extracts columns from a file

paste joins lines from files side by side, separated by tabs or a specified delimiter.

How do you extract the first 5 characters of each line using cut?

A cut -f1-5

B cut -c1-5

C cut -d1-5

D cut -s1-5

The -c option selects character positions, so cut -c1-5 extracts characters 1 to 5.

Which command sequence joins the second column of file1.txt with the first column of file2.txt?

A paste file1.txt file2.txt

B cut -f2 file1.txt | paste -f1 file2.txt

C cut -f2 file1.txt | paste - <(cut -f1 file2.txt)

D cut -f2 file1.txt | paste - file2.txt

Using process substitution <(cut -f1 file2.txt) extracts the first column from file2.txt, then paste joins it with the second column from file1.txt.

What delimiter does paste use by default?

A Tab

B Comma

C Space

D Colon

paste uses a tab character as the default delimiter between joined lines.

Explain how you would extract specific columns from a CSV file and then combine them in a new order using bash commands.

Think about using cut with -d and -f, then paste to join columns side by side.

Describe the difference between selecting fields and selecting characters with the cut command.

Fields depend on delimiters; characters are positions in the line.