Interview Q&A / Linux & Shell
Linux & Shell interview questions
Permissions, processes, pipes and the commands you are expected to know cold.
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- How do you print specific columns of a command's output with awk?
awk splits each line into fields on whitespace and gives them as $1, $2 and so on, with $NF as the last and $0 as the whole line. awk '{print $1, $3}' prints columns 1 and 3. Use -F to set another separator, such as -F: for /etc/passwd.
BeginnerQuick answer1 min read - When would you use cut instead of awk?
cut extracts fixed fields by a single-character delimiter or character positions and is simple and fast. awk handles runs of spaces, conditions and calculations. Use cut for neat CSV-like data and awk for messy whitespace-aligned output.
IntermediateQuick answer1 min read