Cut command with delimiter Control-A

Question

I am trying to get some columns from file1 to file2 using cut command with delimiter Control A.

This is what I tried:

cut -d^A -f2-8 a.dat > b.dat

If my records are like this:

A^AB^AC^AD^AE^AF^AG^AH^A$

my command gives:

AB^AC^AD^AE^AF^AG^AH

Is my command wrong or am I putting the delimiter in a wrong way?

So it leaves Control-A's A in the starting point.

Solution

^A is character number 1 in the ASCII table a.k.a Start of Heading character. If you're using bash, you can have this:

cut -f 2-8 -d $'\x01'

Or use printf (can be builtin or an external binary):

CTRL_A=$(printf '\x01')
cut -f 2-8 -d "$CTRL_A"

You can also verify your output with hexdump:

hexdump -C b.dat

Comments

[chepner]

No need to know the ASCII value of Control-A; -d $'\cA' should work as well.

[user4815162342]

The problem with this approach is that the control character might have been chosen precisely because commas (and other non-control characters) can be present in the fields. In other words, if choosing the approach from this answer, make sure that the "more workable" character is absent from the fields it's supposed to separate.