How to extract data from a column in a text file using Linux command line?

To extract data from a column in a text file using the Linux command line, you can use the cut command. Here’s an example:

Assuming we have a text file named data.txt with three columns of data, separated by tabs:

hello  world   123
foo    bar     456

To extract the second column, you can use the cut command as follows:

cut -f 2 data.txt

This will output:

world
bar

The -f option specifies the field or column to extract, and 2 refers to the second column. You can specify multiple fields or columns by separating them with commas. If your file is delimited by a character other than a tab, you can specify a different delimiter using the -d option, like this:

cut -d ',' -f 2 data.csv

This command will extract the second column from a CSV file named data.csv using a comma delimiter.