perl one liner print columns 2.. last

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: perl one liner print columns 2.. last by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Jan 04, 2013 at 23:34 UTC
Long ago on usenet, Tom Christiansen once wrote: "If you find yourself calling cat with just one argument, you're probably doing something silly". So you should lose the cat and replace: `cat /tmp/1.out\|perl -lane 'print $F[1]..$F[-1]'` [download] with (using the LanX slice idea): `perl -lane 'print join q{ }, @F[1..$#F]' /tmp/1.out` [download] or: `perl -lape '$_=join q{ }, @F[1..$#F]' /tmp/1.out` [download] or even (for variety, not recommended): `perl -lpe 's/\s\S+\s//' /tmp/1.out` [download] Update: See also Re: perl one liner for csv file one field (useless use of cat and other awards References)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: perl one liner print columns 2.. last by Jim (Curate) on Jan 06, 2013 at 17:23 UTC
Also long ago on Usenet, there was the Useless Use of cat award, usually awarded to a practitioner of "cat abuse" by merlyn. I won one once! Jim	[reply]
Re: perl one liner print columns 2.. last by aguilarsoto (Novice) on Jan 04, 2013 at 19:10 UTC
something like this may work too `cat /tmp/1.out \|perl -lane 'shift @F; print @F'` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: perl one liner print columns 2.. last by Jim (Curate) on Jan 04, 2013 at 22:03 UTC
Consider using cut instead of Perl. `cut -f 2- /tmp/1.out` [download] Jim	[reply] [d/l]
Re: perl one liner print columns 2.. last by mhearse (Chaplain) on Jan 04, 2013 at 19:37 UTC
awk does such things well. Uses \s+ delimiter by default. `cat file \| awk '{ print ( $2, $(NF-1) ) }'` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: perl one liner print columns 2.. last by dbuckhal (Chaplain) on Jan 04, 2013 at 19:06 UTC
I got this from an example in "Effective Perl Programming", pg 429. This will skip the first line of a file, but what type of columns are you trying to generate? `perl -ne "print unless $. == 1;" filename(s)` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: perl one liner print columns 2.. last by philipbailey (Curate) on Jan 04, 2013 at 19:03 UTC
Works for me. I would suggest that you show us (an extract) of your input file. `echo 1 2 3 4 5 6\|perl -lane 'print $F[1]..$F[-1]' 23456` [download] Are your columns separated by whitespace? Update: Of course, this doesn't work, for the reasons given by LanX in his reply to this (too hasty) posting.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: perl one liner print columns 2.. last by LanX (Saint) on Jan 04, 2013 at 19:24 UTC
Sorry thats wrong, your test data is misleading you :) you are calculating the numerical range between 2 and 6, which by accident was your input. now change the input in between: `> echo - 2 - - - 6\|perl -lane 'print $F[1]..$F[-1]' 23456` [download] but a slice works: =) `> echo - 2 - - - 6\|perl -lane 'print @F[1..$#F]' 2---6` [download] Cheers Rolf	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: perl one liner print columns 2.. last by Anonymous Monk on Jan 05, 2013 at 14:22 UTC
Thanks for all the timely and helpful replies! Even answers not actually solving the problem, are very educational. I should have provided more detail, this problem has stymied me many times in many situations, and I finally got frustrated enough to ask the question. (and got the answer(s)!) In this case I wanted to print history without the line numbers on lines that were whitespace separated and variable columns. Thanks to all again! These worked for me ... `history\|perl -lane 'print join q{ }, @F[1..$#F]' perl -lane 'print join q{ }, @F[1..$#F]' /tmp/1.out` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: perl one liner print columns 2.. last by Jim (Curate) on Jan 06, 2013 at 17:14 UTC
If you have both history and Perl, then you probably also have cut. `history \| cut -f 2-` [download] On my system, `-n` suppresses line numbers (but not the leading tab). `history -n` [download] Though it's handy to know `-a` and `@F` autosplit command-line idioms for use in some situations, this specific situation is one for which there's a simpler, less arcane way that doesn't require Perl. Also, using cut is less destructive than using Perl because it doesn't convert tabs to spaces as the Perl autosplit trick does. (Of course, this can be remedied by specifying an alternate separator pattern with the `-F` command-line option, but this is just leading you down the garden path.) Jim	[reply] [d/l] [select]