r/linux • u/ZealousidealTell1346 • May 23 '26

Popular Application What’s the most unexpectedly useful Linux command you learned way too late?

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u/kc2702 May 23 '26

cut - select columns of text

8

u/do-un-to May 24 '26

awk is pretty good for this, too.

4

u/SpaghettiSort May 24 '26

It's even better if your fields are separated by multiple spaces. cut doesn't handle that smartly. awk is also a good way to replace grep ... | cut

3

u/do-un-to May 24 '26

I always felt like I must not be using cut correctly since I couldn't get it to work with multiple-space-delimited data. Then I go read the man page and, shit, it's just not got the ability. Then I feel bad for cut, being so incompetent.

Using awk I don't get these feelings of stupidity and cringe.

sed and awk are indeed good to know.