How to arrange this file properly?

Question

I'd prefer to edit TestFile in place to get the desired output. How could I do this? This is a work box so I'd prefer to not have to install additional packages.

TestFile:

randomcollege-nt\jsmith90
randomcollege-nt\aakhbar91
randomcollege-nt\pmanning92
randomcollege-nt\dvader93
jshephard94
bwayne95

Desired output:

jsmith90
aakhbar91
pmanning92
dvader93
jshephard94
bwayne95

again ? http://askubuntu.com/questions/520080/remove-the-first-part-of-a-string-using-sed — Archemar, Sep 09 '14 at 11:38

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 04 '14 at 15:57

6

You can use sed:

sed -i~ 's/.*\\//' TestFile

-i~ tells sed to create a backup with the ~ extension.
s/// is substitution.
.*\\ means anything (.*) followed by a backslash
the replacement part is empty //, i.e. everything up to a backslash will be replaced by nothing.

answered Sep 04 '14 at 15:57

choroba

9,643

worked flawlessly, thanks. what's the "~" after "-i" do? – Roboman1723 Sep 04 '14 at 15:59
3

@Roboman1723 Please select as answer then – kervin Sep 04 '14 at 16:03
@Roboman1723, when you give the -i option an argument, it saves the original file with the suffix you provided. So you'll have the modified data in TestFile and the original data in TestFile~ – glenn jackman Sep 04 '14 at 17:44

Pandya · Answer 2 · 2014-09-08T13:07:37.243

You can get output simply by using command cut:

cut -d '\' -f 2 < TestFile

Where -d is used to determine delimiter which is / here and -f for selecting fields which is 2 here.

Example:

$ cat TestFile
randomcollege-nt\jsmith90
randomcollege-nt\aakhbar91
randomcollege-nt\pmanning92
randomcollege-nt\dvader93
jshephard94
bwayne95

$ cut -d '\' -f 2 < TestFile
jsmith90
aakhbar91
pmanning92
dvader93
jshephard94
bwayne95

If you want to save output to another file then use:

cut -d '\' -f 2 < TestFile > Output

If you want to overwrite TestFile then use following command:

cut -d '\' -f 2 < TestFile|tee TestFile

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 06 '14 at 17:06

2

Though two correct answers have been given but I am giving my personal solution--

sed 's/randomcollege-nt\\//g' testfile

Thank you,

answered Sep 06 '14 at 17:06

saptarshi nag

451

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 09 '14 at 11:02

This is another solution using awk:

 awk -F "\" '{print $(NF)}' testfile > outFile

where -F define the input field separator, than print $(NF) print out the last field.

outFile will contains:

jsmith90
aakhbar91
pmanning92
dvader93
jshephard94
bwayne95

How to arrange this file properly?

4 Answers4