For separating out specific columns of a file, try using awk!
The command to use is:
$ awk '{print $9,$10}' file.txt > file_cut.txt
Where 9 or 10 indicates the ninth or tenth column of a text file.
For an example, say you have the output of an ls -l:
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Jun 19 2012 . drwxr-xr-x 25 root root 4096 Dec 19 21:39 .. drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 16 07:42 backups drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Jun 18 2012 cache drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun 19 2012 games drwxr-xr-x 83 root root 4096 Dec 20 20:44 lib drwxrwsr-x 2 root staff 4096 Nov 13 2010 local lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Jun 22 2011 lock -> /run/lock drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 36864 Jan 17 19:03 log drwxrwsr-x 2 root mail 4096 Nov 30 19:55 mail drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 23 2010 opt lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Jun 22 2011 run -> /run drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Sep 18 13:35 spool drwxrwxrwt 2 root root 4096 Jan 17 19:03 tmp drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 16 2011 www
Save that as file.txt. Now use awk to cut out say, just the fourth column (group names):
$ awk '{print $4}' file.txt > file_cut.txt
You are then left with this in file_cut.txt:
root root root root root root staff root root mail root root root root root
I like to use this to grab the IPs only from apache logs:
$ awk '{print $1}' /var/log/apache2/access.log > ip_addresses.txt
Hack on,
