cut
Select and keep or drop specified columns from the data set.
Usage
gurita cut [-h] -c COLUMN [COLUMN ...] [-i]
Arguments
Argument |
Description |
Reference |
|---|---|---|
|
display help for this command |
|
|
select columns |
|
|
drop the selected columns insted of keeping them |
Simple example
Suppose we are working with the following small data set with 10 data rows that is stored in a file called example.csv:
sepal_length,sepal_width,petal_length,petal_width,species
6.3,3.4,5.6,2.4,virginica
6.3,2.5,5.0,1.9,virginica
4.8,3.4,1.9,0.2,setosa
6.3,3.3,4.7,1.6,versicolor
6.4,3.2,4.5,1.5,versicolor
4.7,3.2,1.3,0.2,setosa
6.4,2.8,5.6,2.1,virginica
5.4,3.9,1.7,0.4,setosa
5.9,3.0,4.2,1.5,versicolor
5.2,3.5,1.5,0.2,setosa
We can select and keep just the sepal_length and species columns and discard all other columns with the following command:
gurita cut -c sepal_length species < example.csv
The output of the above command is shown below. Observe that only the two selected columns remain in the data set.
sepal_length,species
6.3,virginica
6.3,virginica
4.8,setosa
6.3,versicolor
6.4,versicolor
4.7,setosa
6.4,virginica
5.4,setosa
5.9,versicolor
5.2,setosa
Getting help
The full set of command line arguments for cut can be obtained with the -h or --help
arguments:
gurita cut -h
Selecting columns
-c COLUMN [COLUMN ...], --col COLUMN [COLUMN ...]
The cut command requires one or more column names to be specified. By default, the named columns are kept and the unnamed columns are discarded.
Note that this behaviour is inverted with the -i (--invert) option is specified, such that the named columns are dropped (see below).
Drop selected columns
The columns specified by -c (--col) are dropped when the -i (--invert) option is specified.
For example, the command below drops the columns sepal_length and species and keeps all other columns from the data set in example.csv:
gurita cut -c sepal_length species --invert < example.csv
The output of the command is shown below. Note that the columns retained are the inverse of the ones from the simple example above.
sepal_width,petal_length,petal_width
3.4,5.6,2.4
2.5,5.0,1.9
3.4,1.9,0.2
3.3,4.7,1.6
3.2,4.5,1.5
3.2,1.3,0.2
2.8,5.6,2.1
3.9,1.7,0.4
3.0,4.2,1.5
3.5,1.5,0.2