Question

I need to create a bash script that will cut a column from a data file that has been requested by a user (input). The script needs to prompt a field that will become a variable used to cut the field requested. This is one of the scripts that I have tried:

$x = cut -c example_list
echo -n "What column would you like to cut: "
set x = $< 

Answer 1

You can get user input using read:

echo -n "What column would you like to cut: "
read col
cut -f $col ...