[Daryl Lim]

Hi all,

How do i do the following using cut & paste:

create a file from /etc/passwd in a format:

userid:username:groupid

e.g:
0:root:0
1:bin:1
2:daemon:2
3:adm:4

i tried to cut the userid field with "cut -f 3 -d: > file1" but got the userid without ":" (deliminator) for making the first column in the new file.

Thank you.

Daryl

[fla5do]

Hi Daryl Lim,
I dont understand your question exactly. What is the output in file1 you want to have ?

[Daryl Lim]

Hi Peter,

I would like my file1 to be in the format of :

userid:username:groupid



regards,
Daryl

[fla5do]

Hi,
do you mean this ?

# this is an example from my passwd
# support:x:1301:200upport-User:/usr2/support:/bin/sh
# guest:x:1303:50:GastUser:/usr/guest:/bin/sh

cat /etc/passwd | awk ' BEGIN { FS=":" }
{
print $3":"$1":"$4 > "file1"
}'

# and this will be the output in file1
# 1301:support:200
# 1303:guest:50

[fla5do]

Originally Posted by Daryl Lim

i tried to cut the userid field with "cut -f 3 -d: > file1" but got the userid without ":" (deliminator) for making the first column in the new file.

Hi, I read your question again and now I think to understand your problem.

you get the delimiter ":" in file1 when you specify the second and more fields like this:"cut -f 3,4... -d: > file1"

In your example is only one field. It is not necessary to use delimiters if you have only one field.

[artemka]

You can use

cat /etc/passwd | awk -F: '{print $1":"$2":"3}'

where $fields will represend the order of the field in password file, separated by :

cheers