cut: command not found

The cut command extracts the specified lines of text from a file. Common cut command options and their uses are given in the following table.

Option Description
-c Specify the number of the character to cut from each line.
-d{delimiter} Separate one field from another.
-f{field numbers} Specify the field numbers to cut on as separated by the delimiter. For example, -f2 indicates the field between the first and second instances of the delimiter.
-s Suppress a line if the delimiter is not found.

Syntax

The syntax of the cut command is:

# cut [options] {file names}

The cut command is used to display only specific columns or characters from a text file or from other command outputs. For example, in the following command, we display the login names from the /etc/passwd file:

$ cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

If you encounter the below error while running the cut command:

cut: command not found

you may try installing the below package as per your choice of distribution:

Distribution Command
OS X brew install coreutils
Debian apt-get install coreutils
Ubuntu apt-get install coreutils
Alpine apk add coreutils
Arch Linux pacman -S coreutils
Kali Linux apt-get install coreutils
CentOS yum install coreutils
Fedora dnf install coreutils
Raspbian apt-get install coreutils

cut Command Examples

1. Print a specific character/field range of each line:

# command | cut --characters|fields=1|1,10|1-10|1-|-10

2. Print a range of each line with a specific delimiter:

# command | cut --delimiter="," --characters=1

3. Print a range of each line of the specific file:

# cut --characters=1 path/to/file

4. The following command line displays the first and third fields from a colon-delimited file (extra lines stripped from output):

$ cut -d: -f1,3 /etc/passwd

5. The following command line display only the first four characters of every line in the /etc/passwd file:

$ cut -c 1-4 /etc/passwd
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