.. _filtVert:

Filtering Vertically
---------------------

.. seealso::

   * Video about `Filtering Data Vertically with Cut and Awk
     <http://showmedo.com/videotutorials/video?name=8660010&fromSeriesID=866>`_

.. _cut:

cut
^^^^

.. program:: cut 

.. describe:: cut

Print selected parts of lines from each FILE to standard output.
:command:`cut` can also read data from stdin (usually via a pipe).

SYNOPSIS
   cut [OPTION]... [FILE]...


.. cmdoption:: -d, --delimiter=DELIM

   Use DELIM instead of TAB for field delimiter
   
.. cmdoption:: -f, --fields=LIST

   Select only these fields;  also print any line that contains  no
   delimiter character, unless the -s option is specified



awk
^^^

.. sidebar:: Alternatives

    If :ref:`awk` is to be considered for filtering data, also
    consider Perl and Python, which are general purpose scripting languages
    with excellent string processing capabilities.

See :ref:`vert_awk`

.. _paste:

paste
^^^^^^

.. index:: paste
.. program:: paste
.. describe:: paste

    Write  lines  consisting  of  the sequentially corresponding lines from
    each FILE, separated by TABs, to standard output.   With  no  FILE,  or
    when FILE is -, read standard input.

    The :command:`paste` command is sort of the opposite of :command:`cut`.
    The :command:`cut` command filters vertical data (columns) from the data
    and :command:`paste` takes columns of data from separate files and put them
    together.

SYNOPSIS

   :command:`paste` [OPTION]... [FILE]...

.. option:: -d, --delimiters=LIST

   reuse characters from LIST instead of TABs

.. option:: -s, --serial

   paste one file at a time instead of in parallel

Files contain the desired columns and :command:`paste` merges the columns. 

::

    $ getent passwd | tail -5 | cut -d: -f3 > field3

    $ getent passwd | tail -5 | cut -d: -f7 > field7
    
    $ paste -d: field3 field7
    558:/bin/bash
    559:/bin/bash
    560:/bin/bash
    561:/bin/bash
    562:/bin/bash