Add Columns To Text

Create A File With Comma Separated Text

echo "chris, 34, male" >> staff.txt
echo "sarah, 22, female" >> staff.txt
echo "Bob, 59, male" >> staff.txt

View File

cat staff.txt

chris, 34, male
sarah, 22, female
Bob, 59, male

Extract Text By Breaking Into Columns And Save To File

cut the text in staff.txt that is separated by commas (-d ',') into columns, then take the second (-f 2) column, and finally save to ages.txt

cut -d ',' -f 2 staff.txt > ages.txt

View ages.txt

cat ages.txt

 34
 22
 59

Add ages.txt As New Column Of staff.txt

Add (paste) the content of ages.txt as a new column of staff.txt delimited with a comma (-d ',').

paste -d ',' ages.txt staff.txt

 34,chris, 34, male
 22,sarah, 22, female
 59,Bob, 59, male