Bash Cut Command Show the first column of a file
Example
Suppose you have a file that looks like this
John Smith 31
Robert Jones 27
...
This file has 3 columns separated by spaces. To select only the first column, do the following.
cut -d ' ' -f1 filename
Here the -d flag, specifies the delimiter, or what separates the records. The -f flag specifies the field or column number. This will display the following output
John
Robert
...
