This project includes a Python implementation of the Unix cut command, named pycut. The script is designed to mimic the functionality of the Unix cut tool, allowing users to select portions of each line from a given file or standard input, using a specified delimiter and field numbers.
- Field Selection: Select specific fields from each line of the file or standard input.
- Custom Delimiters: Choose a custom delimiter character for separating fields in a line.
- Standard Input Support: Ability to read from standard input if no file is specified or if a dash (
-) is provided as the file name. - Command-Line Interface: Fully functional command-line interface for easy use in Unix-like environments.
- Python 3.x
No installation is needed. Just ensure Python 3.x is installed on your system.
Run the script from the command line, specifying the options for field selection and delimiter.
python pycut.py -f <fields> -d <delimiter> [file]
<fields>: Comma-separated list of field numbers to select.<delimiter>: Delimiter character to use for splitting the fields.[file]: Optional. Path to the file to be processed. If omitted, the script reads from standard input.
-
Selecting the second field from a file with a comma delimiter:
python pycut.py -f 2 -d "," yourfile.csv -
Reading from standard input and selecting fields 1 and 2:
cat sample.tsv | python pycut.py -f 1,2
The Python cut tool can be combined with other Unix commands to create data processing pipelines.
Example: Counting the number of unique artists in a dataset.
python pycut.py -f 2 -d "," fourchords.csv | sort | uniq | wc -l
- The
sort,uniq, andwccommands might not be available in standard Windows command line environments. - Use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), Git Bash, or PowerShell to execute Unix-like commands.
- In PowerShell, you can replace
sort | uniq | wc -lwithSort-Object | Get-Unique | Measure-Object -Line.