#!/usr/bin/perl
#: print the Nth field of each line
my $field = shift or usage();
$field -= 1 if $field > 0;

while (<>) {
        chomp;
        my @f = split;
        print $f[$field], "\n";
}

sub usage {
        print STDERR "$0 fieldnumber\n"; 
        exit 1;
}
__END__

I love this utility!  It's by Mark-Jason Dominus.

Note that you can do any of:
         f 3 < some_file
         f 3 some_file
         f 3 some_file another_file ...
 stuff | f 3 

Note that 1 means the first field.  (Fields are 1-indexed.)


Here's more of his brilliant stuff:
  http://perl.plover.com/classes/mybin/samples/MENU.html
  http://blog.plover.com/prog/runN.html
Read them!

   -- sburke@cpan.org

~End~