Question

Can anybody tell me what is wrong with the following bash code

for f in $FILES
do
  cut -d, f1-7 < $f > $f.tmp
done

When I run in the loop

echo "cut -d, f1-7 < $f > $f.tmp"

I get the right command output and when I run that command by itself, it works perfectly. But when I run it in the bash loop, it doesn’t work, I get the following error:

cut: you must specify a list of bytes, characters, or fields
Try `cut --help' for more information.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

I think you miss a minus sign in your cut command:

cut -d, -f1-7 < $f > $f.tmp