CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashcut
user3488955
user3488955

Reputation:

bash invalid delimiter in cut command

tab="`\echo '\t'`"

grep "^.*${tab}.*${tab}.*${tab}.*${tab}.*${tab}" $file | 
  grep -vi ssm_id |
    cut -f 1,5,6 -d "${tab}" > $rmloadfile

I am getting error as

-cut: invalid delimiter

the above code is part of my bash script.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1766

Answers (2)

chepner
chepner

Reputation: 532538

Ignoring the actual problem, you really want to use awk here instead of this combination of grep and cut:

awk 'NF>=6 && tolower($0) !~ ssm_id { print $1, $5, $6 }' $file > $rmloadfile

Upvotes: 3

lethal-guitar
lethal-guitar

Reputation: 4519

The echo command doesn't interpret backslash escaped characters by default. It has to be enabled using the -e switch.

If you use:

tab="$(echo -e '\t')"

it works.

But I'd rather recommend using the approach proposed by @devnull in the comments, or refer to the linked question.

Upvotes: 2

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