Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook - Third Edition

How to do it...

The awk command is frequently used for this task.

1. To print the fifth column, use the following command:

        $ awk '{ print $5 }' filename

2. We can print multiple columns and insert a custom string between the columns.

 The following command will print the permission and filename of each file in the  current directory:

        $ ls -l | awk '{ print $1 " :  " $8 }'
        -rw-r--r-- :  delimited_data.txt
        -rw-r--r-- :  obfuscated.txt
        -rw-r--r-- :  paste1.txt
        -rw-r--r-- :  paste2.txt