cut command - specifying multiple delimiters

[Danny Fang]

Hi,

I'm attempting to use the "cut" command to extract elements from the filename having the form shown below:
A20051109.0215-0230_SubNetwork=ONRM_RootMo,SubNetwork=SNTDCAUJRNC002,MeContext=SNTDCAUJRNC002_statsfile.xml

I'd want to extract the following elements:
1) A20051109
2) 0215
3) 0230
4)SubNetwork=ONRM_RootMo,SubNetwork=SNTDCAUJRNC002,MeContext=SNTDCAUJRNC002
5) statsfile
6) xml

I've tried using "cut" in the following way, but it did not do the trick.

ls A20051109.0215-0230_SubNetwork=ONRM_RootMo,SubNetwork=SNTDCAUJRNC002,MeContext=SNTDCAUJRNC002_statsfile.xml |cut -f1-6 -d".,-"
cut: invalid delimiter
bash-3.00$

I've also tried using single quotes as in '.,-,_' to the -d option but it produced the same error shown above.

How do I specify multiple delimiters to the "cut" -d option?

Also, how do I assign each element obtained through "cut" into their respective variable names in a script?

Could anyone help show me how it's done?

Thanks

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Danny:

A llok at the manpages for 'cut' will show you that the delimiter ('-d') switch supports only a simple character argument.

You asked "How do I specify multiple delimiters to the "cut" -d option?". Consider :

# echo "a b|c d"|cut -d " " -f2|cut -d"|" -f2

...this extracts the "c" from the input string. We need to do two 'cut's each with a different delimiter.

To assign the extracted value to a variable, simply do:

# VAR=`echo "a b|c d"|cut -d " " -f2|cut -d"|" -f2`

# echo ${VAR} #...to see the value.

Regards!

...JRF...

[jon2]

Change the delimeters to all be the same before using cut.... I chose spaces then awk will delimit on space without setting field seperator - so no cut required". Read directly in to variables.

e.g.
echo "XX.yy,zz-aa,bb" |sed
"s/\,/\ /g
s/-/ /g" |awk '{print $1, $2, $3}' |read VAR1 VAR2 VAR3

If you like you can use this with cut as before but only need to use one type.

[harry d brown jr]

With a decently complicated sed you can parse and reconstruct, replacing the delimiters with spaces:

sed "s/^\(.*\)\.\(.*\)\-\(.*\)\_\(.*\)\_\(.*\)\_\(.*\)\.\(.*\)/\1 \2 \3 \4_\5 \6 \7/"

thus

echo A20051109.0215-0230_SubNetwork=ONRM_RootMo,SubNetwork=SNTDCAUJRNC002,MeContext=SNTDCAUJRNC002_statsfile.xml | sed "s/^\(.*\)\.\(.*\)\-\(.*\)\_\(.*\)\_\(.*\)\_\(.*\)\.\(.*\)/\1 \2 \3 \4_\5 \6 \7/"

produces

A20051109 0215 0230 SubNetwork=ONRM_RootMo,SubNetwork=SNTDCAUJRNC002,MeContext=SNTDCAUJRNC002 statsfile xml

Note that I had to reinsert the underscore (_) in the "SubNetwork" string.

live free or die
harry d brown jr

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Your problem will be the ","
For some parts of the string this is apparently desired to be a seperator, but not for all. You'll need (perl) logic to fix that.

Just doing the split is easy in perl:

#cat file1.tmp
A20051109.0215-0230_SubNetwork=ONRM_RootMo,SubNetwork=SNTDCAUJRNC002,MeContext=SNTDCAUJRNC002_statsfile.xml
#
#perl -ne "foreach $x (split /[.,\-_]/) {print \"$x\n\"}" file1.tmp
A20051109
0215
0230
SubNetwork=ONRM
RootMo
SubNetwork=SNTDCAUJRNC002
MeContext=SNTDCAUJRNC002
statsfile
xml

btw... you can pass the the seperators on the command line with -F, anf perl (like awk) has build-ins for auto split fields.


hth,
Hein.

[jon2]

Do not forget that where the delimiter is desired to be a "_" and has been made a space it can be reconstructed with the variables when they are used. (no perl etc required).

e.g echo "${VAR2}_${VAR3}....

[harry d brown jr]

To assign the "fields" into script variables you could do this:

create a script:

somescript.ksh
#!/usr/bin/ksh
#
while read aline
do
echo $aline | sed "s/^\(.*\)\.\(.*\)\-\(.*\)\_\(.*\)\_\(.*\)\_\(.*\)\.\(.*\)/\1 \2 \3 \4_\5 \6 \7/"|read var1 var2 var3 var4 var5 var6
echo var1=$var1
echo var2=$var2
echo var3=$var3
echo var4=$var4
echo var5=$var5
echo var6=$var6
done

chmod a+x somescript.ksh

cat yourdata | ./somescript.ksh

live free or die
harry d brown jr

[jon2]

Harry,
Do you mean like in my sample at 11.26 am ?

[Peter Nikitka · Accepted solution]

Hi,

if you like a solution using shell features only (I did this in ksh):

name='A20051109.0215-0230_SubNetwork=ONRM_RootMo,SubNetwork=SNTDCAUJRNC
002,MeContext=SNTDCAUJRNC002_statsfile.xml'
p1=${name%%.*}
remain=${name#$p1.}
p2=${remain%%-*}
remain=${remain#$p2-}
p3=${remain%%_*}
remain=${remain#${p3}_}
p4=${remain%_*}
remain=${remain#${p4}_}
p5=${remain%.*}
p6=${remain#*.}

print $name;print $p1;print $p2;print $p3;print $p4;print $p5;print $p6

A20051109.0215-0230_SubNetwork=ONRM_RootMo,SubNetwork=SNTDCAUJRNC002,MeContext=SNTDCAUJRNC002_statsfile.xml
A20051109
0215
0230
SubNetwork=ONRM_RootMo,SubNetwork=SNTDCAUJRNC002,MeContext=SNTDCAUJRNC002
statsfile
xml

The variables p1...p6 will contain the requested values (watch for the correct string operators!).

mfG Peter

[harry d brown jr]

jon2,

close if you consider the use of the "read" statement, but the examples I provided do the following:
- without the use of awk or perl (not that there is anything wrong with them)
- use of pattern matching
- providing all SIX desired output fields
- example of putting the code in a loop

BTW, you wouldn't be claiming plagurisim, would you?

live free or die
harry d brown jr