5 ms·

99.9% of my awk use case is to split a line (a la "cut - d\ - f) while discarding successive spaces. e.g.: $ echo "key: value" | awk '{print $1}'

99.9% of my awk use case is to split a line (a la "cut - d\ - f) while discarding successive spaces. e.g.: $ echo "key: value" | awk '{print $1}' value Open to a simpler replacement :-)

cb321 3y ago
You might consider: https://github.com/c-blake/bu/blob/main/doc/cols.md https://github.com/c-blake/bu/blob/main/doc/cols.md That's in Nim, though that may not be much a barrier. (There may also be other tools in bu/ of interest.)
llimllib 3y ago
You can do it with cut too: $ echo "key: value" | cut -wf 2 value but whether it's actually "simpler" is open to debate edit: actually gnu cut lacks -w, so this is bsd-only. lol computers, stick with awk
- cb321 3y ago
  Only with FreeBSD `cut`.. coreutils `cut` (Linux) is missing -w as is at least OpenBSD? EDIT: I see you discovered this. lol computers indeed. ;-)
- version_five 3y ago
  What does -w do? This works without it, no? Edit, found it, "use whitespace as the delimiter" https://www.unix.com/man-page/FreeBSD/1/cut/ https://www.unix.com/man-page/FreeBSD/1/cut/ For most cases like the OP you'd know the delimiter anyway so I don't think the absence is a big deal, and if not it would be easy to use tr or sed to make it consistent
  - llimllib 3y ago
    the important thing is that it uses _consecutive_ whitespace as a the delimiter, so you'd have to use sed to collapse all the whitespace down to one tab. At that point, awk is vastly simpler
- rigelina 3y ago
  I can't tell you how many times I pipe in rev to put my text where I want it for cut (then rev it again). Abbreviated example, getting the service names from a k8s cluster looks roughly like (actual command does a bit more processing): kubectl get deployments -o wide | rev | cut -d'=' -f1 | rev But if it's just gobbling whitespace, xargs without a command can be your friend. $ echo "key: value" | cut -d: -f2 | xargs value My brain generally goes "rev sed head tail xargs cut tr ... screw it, I'll use python ... someday I shall learn awk." There's a young engineer on my team that knows awk, and I'm envious.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
    You don’t even need to know awk these days. Just say “how to do x munging task” in ChatGPT and you’ll get a one liner that will be just as good as if you’d say there squinting at man pages for 30 minutes
    - llimllib 3y ago
      this is exactly the sort of case where you get non-portable bullshit you don't understand out of it! It spits out something that works on BSD but not on GNU, you put it in your script and _boom_ wonder why the thing blew up in prod, and oh btw you also lack the ability to debug it because you never understood it in the first place
      - Galanwe 3y ago
        More importantly it's just mega slow. The whole point of bash one liners is not to write short bash, it's to type it in your shell to get a result quickly. Just typing the url to chatgpt in my browser I would have had the time to write my one liner in she'll XD
        SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
        I sincerely doubt unless you are writing shell all day every day that you will get a decently complex working one liner out faster than GPT4.
asicsp 3y ago
Check out https://github.com/sstadick/hck https://github.com/sstadick/hck and https://github.com/theryangeary/choose https://github.com/theryangeary/choose - both are alternatives for cut/awk and allows regex based split as well. Though, they don't remove starting/ending whitespaces IIRC. I wrote a script (https://github.com/learnbyexample/regexp-cut https://github.com/learnbyexample/regexp-cut) that uses `awk` to provide a `cut`-like tool with regex-based split, negative index, etc. And this will take care of starting/ending whitespaces as that's the default `awk` behavior.
Narishma 3y ago
I think you mean echo "key: value" | awk '{print $2}'

99.9% of my awk use case is to split a line (a la "cut - d\ - f) while discarding successive spaces. e.g.: $ echo "key: value" | awk '{print $1}' value Open to a simpler replacement :-)

cb321 3y ago

You might consider: https://github.com/c-blake/bu/blob/main/doc/cols.md https://github.com/c-blake/bu/blob/main/doc/cols.md That's in Nim, though that may not be much a barrier. (There may also be other tools in bu/ of interest.)

llimllib 3y ago

You can do it with cut too: $ echo "key: value" | cut -wf 2 value but whether it's actually "simpler" is open to debate edit: actually gnu cut lacks -w, so this is bsd-only. lol computers, stick with awk

cb321 3y ago
Only with FreeBSD `cut`.. coreutils `cut` (Linux) is missing -w as is at least OpenBSD? EDIT: I see you discovered this. lol computers indeed. ;-)
version_five 3y ago
What does -w do? This works without it, no? Edit, found it, "use whitespace as the delimiter" https://www.unix.com/man-page/FreeBSD/1/cut/ https://www.unix.com/man-page/FreeBSD/1/cut/ For most cases like the OP you'd know the delimiter anyway so I don't think the absence is a big deal, and if not it would be easy to use tr or sed to make it consistent
- llimllib 3y ago
  the important thing is that it uses _consecutive_ whitespace as a the delimiter, so you'd have to use sed to collapse all the whitespace down to one tab. At that point, awk is vastly simpler
rigelina 3y ago
I can't tell you how many times I pipe in rev to put my text where I want it for cut (then rev it again). Abbreviated example, getting the service names from a k8s cluster looks roughly like (actual command does a bit more processing): kubectl get deployments -o wide | rev | cut -d'=' -f1 | rev But if it's just gobbling whitespace, xargs without a command can be your friend. $ echo "key: value" | cut -d: -f2 | xargs value My brain generally goes "rev sed head tail xargs cut tr ... screw it, I'll use python ... someday I shall learn awk." There's a young engineer on my team that knows awk, and I'm envious.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
  You don’t even need to know awk these days. Just say “how to do x munging task” in ChatGPT and you’ll get a one liner that will be just as good as if you’d say there squinting at man pages for 30 minutes
  - llimllib 3y ago
    this is exactly the sort of case where you get non-portable bullshit you don't understand out of it! It spits out something that works on BSD but not on GNU, you put it in your script and _boom_ wonder why the thing blew up in prod, and oh btw you also lack the ability to debug it because you never understood it in the first place
    - Galanwe 3y ago
      More importantly it's just mega slow. The whole point of bash one liners is not to write short bash, it's to type it in your shell to get a result quickly. Just typing the url to chatgpt in my browser I would have had the time to write my one liner in she'll XD
      - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
        I sincerely doubt unless you are writing shell all day every day that you will get a decently complex working one liner out faster than GPT4.

asicsp 3y ago

Check out https://github.com/sstadick/hck https://github.com/sstadick/hck and https://github.com/theryangeary/choose https://github.com/theryangeary/choose - both are alternatives for cut/awk and allows regex based split as well. Though, they don't remove starting/ending whitespaces IIRC. I wrote a script (https://github.com/learnbyexample/regexp-cut https://github.com/learnbyexample/regexp-cut) that uses `awk` to provide a `cut`-like tool with regex-based split, negative index, etc. And this will take care of starting/ending whitespaces as that's the default `awk` behavior.

Narishma 3y ago

I think you mean echo "key: value" | awk '{print $2}'