How can I select columns from a file?

head and tail let you select rows from a text file. If you want to select columns, you can use the command cut. It has several options (use man cut to explore them), but the most common is something like:

cut -f 2-5,8 -d , values.csv

which means "select columns 2 through 5 and columns 8, using comma as the separator". cut uses -f (meaning "fields") to specify columns and -d (meaning "delimiter") to specify the separator. You need to specify the latter because some files may use spaces, tabs, or colons to separate columns.

What command will select the first column (containing dates) from the file spring.csv?

Possible Answers

cut -d , -f 1 seasonal/spring.csv
cut -d, -f1 seasonal/spring.csv
Either of the above.
Neither of the above, because -f must come before -d.

Exercise

How can I select columns from a file?

Instructions

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