I have a file whose contents are dir1/dir2/dir3/file1 dir1/dir2/dir3/file2 dir1/dir2/file3 dir1/dir2/file4 etc. How can I use 'cut' command to get file 1, file2, file3, file4 and redirect it to a new file. i.e., how can I use 'cut' command to supress all the characters before '/' and send file1,file2,file3 and file4 to another file.

Try sed 's#..*/##' sourcefile.dat > otherfile.dat

#Hi #!/bin/ksh # on Solaris 7 var="dir1/dir2/dir3/file1" # first, use the basename command: basename $var # second, if you have ksh/bash, use the pattern matching operators: echo ${var##*/} # third, cut isn't the best tool for this job. awk is, but if you # insist on using cut, determine the number of fields, i.e. count the number of slashes: # set expands the positional parameters $1,$2, $3, etc set - $(IFS="/"; echo $var) ff=$# # number of fields echo $var|cut -d "/" -f $ff Regards, Nails