how many columns are there in text file ??

[samirm]

Hi,

We have received a file with many no. of columns.
Is there any command, so that I can extract the desired fields from that file ?? How can I count the total no. of columns in that file ?

thanks ...

Sam

 

[Ygor]

You can use awk which has a built-in variable called NF which holds the Number of Fields (i.e. columns)...

[tt]awk '{print NF}' file1[/tt]

...will print the number of fields for every line in the file, so...

[tt]awk '{print NF}' file1 | uniq [/tt]

...should just give one result if all lines have the same number of fields.

 

[parbhani]

Hi ,

Use the same awk to extract the column you want to extract.

E.g.

awk '{print $1}' file1
will extract you the first column, $2 will second, $3 will third and so on.

Cheers

 

[samirm]

thanks to all !!
It solved my purpose ...

Sam