how to cut columns of csv

Question

I have a set of csv files (around 250), each having 300 to 500 records. I need to cut 2 or 3 columns from each file and store it to another one. I\'m using ubuntu OS

Answer 1

If you used ssconvert to get the CSV you might try:

ssconvert -O 'separator="|"' "file.xls" "file.txt"

Notice the TXT extension instead CSV, this way will use Gnumeric_stf:stf_assistant exporter instead of Gnumeric_stf:stf_csv, which let you use options (-O parameter). Otherwise you'll get a The file saver does not take options error. Pipe character is much more unlikely, but you might want to check before.

Then you can rename it and do things like:

cat file.csv | cut -d "|" -f3 | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head

• Other options example: -O 'eol=unix separator=; format=preserve charset=UTF-8 locale=en_US transliterate-mode=transliterate quoting-mode=never'.
• A solution with AWK v4+.
• ssconvert man page.