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Data Manipulation: echo, printf, tr, wc, sort, cut, paste, diff, awk, sed

echo

Built-in Linux feature to print out arguments as standard output.

echo {string}

printf

Similar to echo, but allows for more control over the formatting of output.

printf {string}
Option Function
\n newline
printf "hello \n how are you"

tr

tr, or translate, performs operations like removing repeated characters, converting uppercase to lowercase, and basic character removal

 or replacement.

tr {character 1} {character 2}
echo 'linuxize' | tr 'lin' 'red'
reduxeze

In this example, tr has been used to replace the occurrence of 'lin' with 'red'.

wc

wc, or wordcount, is a function used for counting a part of an output. wc can be used to count the number of words, lines, characters, or bytes in a file or output.

wc [options] {filename}
Option Function
-l Line count
-c byte count
-m

character count
-w

word count

sort

Linux utility for sorting lines of text files.

sort [options] {filename}
Option Function
-k {column number) Sort by values in a specified column.
-n Sorts based on numerical value
-r Sorts fields in descending order
-t Seperate one field from another

cut

Extracts specified lines of text from a file.

cut [options] {filename}
Option Function
-c Specify the number of characters to cut from each line.
-d {delimter} Seperate one field from another.
-f {fieldnumber) Specify the field numbers to cut as separated by the delimiter. IE f2 would be the field between the first and second instances of the delimiter.
-s Suppress a line if a delimiter is not found.
Example 
root@jump:~# cat test1.txt 
hello1 hello2 hello3 hello4 hello5 hello6
hello1 hello2 hello3 hello4 hello5 hello6

root@jump:~# cut -d " " -f2-3 test1.txt
hello2 hello3
hello2 hello3

In this example, I have a file with hello written 6 times across each line, seperated by a single space.

Using cut, I've set the space (" ") as the delimiter, or seperator, and then have selected fields 2-3 to be cut.

paste

Used to merge lines from text files horizontally.

diff

Used to compare text files.

diff [options] {file1} {file2}
Option Function
-b

Ignore spacing differences
-i  ignore case differences
-t Expand tab characters in output lines
-w  Ignore spacing differences and tabs
-c  Display a list of differences with three lines of context
-u Output results in unified mode.

awk

Performs pattern matching on files. awk does have some advanced functionality such as allowing execution of code blocks on patterns, ie if pattern X is found then execute code Y.

awk [options] ['patterns {actions}'] {filename}

sed

Stream Editor - sed. A program that can be used to modify text files according to various parameters.

sed {'option/addresss/action'} {filenames}
Options Function
d delete the lines that match a specified pattern
-n,p Print only the lines that contain the pattern.
s Sustitute the first occurrence of the string in aa file.
s,g Globally substitute the original string with the replacement string for each occurrence.


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