Given a CSV file, how do I delete the content between the 2nd and 3rd tabs of each row?

Question

I am using a mac and I have a CSV file delimited by tabs. I want to just remove all the content between the 2nd and 3rd tabs or replace it with something like "XXXX". Is there a command for this?

The quickest way would be using a text editor that allows vertical selection (sublime, text mate), but I'm guessing you want to do this from the command line, in which case sed is your friend — spuder, Jul 30 '13 at 19:20
@spuder, vim can do vertical selection too, but in this case the fields may not be aligned. Can editors deal with that? A spreadsheet would be more straightforward. — Paulo Almeida, Jul 30 '13 at 21:00

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 30 '13 at 20:14

1

Try awk

awk '{$3="XXXXX"; print $0}' infile > newfile

answered Jul 30 '13 at 20:14

jim mcnamara

745

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 30 '13 at 21:02

1

Using cut:

cut --complement -f 2-3 <file>

answered Jul 30 '13 at 21:02

Paulo Almeida

746
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Given a CSV file, how do I delete the content between the 2nd and 3rd tabs of each row?

2 Answers2