Practice Exercise: File Manipulation Utilities

Objective

Explore and practice file manipulation utilities in Linux, including cut, paste, join, and sort.

Task 1: Using cut for Text Extraction

• Open a terminal window.
• Create a sample CSV file named data.csv with multiple columns of data (e.g., name, age, city).
• Use the cut command to extract specific columns from data.csv. For example, extract only the "name" and "city" columns and save the result in a new file.

  # Create the data.csv file with sample data
  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ cat data.csv
  name,age,city
  Alice,25,New York
  Bob,30,Los Angeles
  Charlie,28,Chicago
  David,22,Houston
  Eve,35,San Francisco
  Frank,40,Boston
  Grace,29,Seattle
  Hank,32,Austin
  Ivy,27,Denver
  Jack,24,Phoenix
  
  # Use the cut command to extract specific columns (e.g., "name" and "city")
  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ cut -d ',' -f 1,3 data.csv > extracted_data.csv
  
  # Display the contents of the extracted_data.csv file
  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ cat extracted_data.csv
  name,city
  Alice,New York
  Bob,Los Angeles
  Charlie,Chicago
  David,Houston
  Eve,San Francisco
  Frank,Boston
  Grace,Seattle
  Hank,Austin
  Ivy,Denver
  Jack,Phoenix
  

Task 2: Merging Lines with paste

• Create two sample text files named file1.txt and file2.txt with multiple lines of text.
• Use the paste command to merge the lines from file1.txt and file2.txt side by side and save the result in a new file.

  # Create two sample text files, file1.txt and file2.txt
  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ cat file1.txt
  Line 1 from file1
  Line 2 from file1
  Line 3 from file1
  
  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ cat file2.txt
  Line 1 from file2
  Line 2 from file2
  Line 3 from file2
  
  # Use the paste command to merge the lines side by side and save the result in a new file, merged.txt
  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ paste file1.txt file2.txt > merged.txt
  
  # Display the contents of the merged.txt file
  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ cat merged.txt
  Line 1 from file1   Line 1 from file2
  Line 2 from file1   Line 2 from file2
  Line 3 from file1   Line 3 from file2
  

Task 3: Combining Files with join

• Create two sample CSV files named employees.csv and salaries.csv with a common key column (e.g., employee ID).
• Use the join command to combine the two files based on the common key column and save the result in a new file.

  # Create two sample CSV files, employees.csv and salaries.csv, with a common key column (employee ID)
  cat > employees.csv <<EOF
  Employee ID,Name,Department
  101,John,HR
  102,Emily,Finance
  103,Michael,IT
  104,Susan,HR
  EOF
  
  cat > salaries.csv <<EOF
  Employee ID,Salary
  101,60000
  102,75000
  103,80000
  104,55000
  EOF
  
  # Use the join command to combine the two files based on the common key column (Employee ID)
  # The `-t` option specifies the delimiter (,) used in the CSV files, and `-1` and `-2` specify the join fields.
  # The `-o` option specifies the output format.
  join -t ',' -1 1 -2 1 employees.csv salaries.csv > combined.csv
  
  # Display the contents of the combined.csv file
  cat combined.csv
  Employee ID,Name,Department,Salary
  101,John,HR,60000
  102,Emily,Finance,75000
  103,Michael,IT,80000
  104,Susan,HR,55000
  

Task 4: Sorting Data with sort

• Create a sample text file named unsorted.txt with unsorted lines of text.
• Use the sort command to sort the lines in unsorted.txt alphabetically and save the sorted result in a new file.

  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ cat > unsorted.txt <<EOF
  Banana
  Cherry
  Apple
  Date
  Grape
  EOF
  
  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ sort unsorted.txt > sorted.txt
  
  [intern@intern-a1t-inf-lnx1 ~]$ cat sorted.txt
  
  Apple
  Banana
  Cherry
  Date
  Grape
  

Conclusion

In this lab exercise, you've practiced using file manipulation utilities such as cut, paste, join, and sort in a Linux environment. These commands are essential for various text and data processing tasks. You've learned how to extract specific columns, merge lines from multiple files, combine files based on common keys, and sort text data. These skills are valuable for tasks like data cleaning, data merging, and data analysis in a Linux environment.