cut - remove sections from each line of files: [terrence@igloo webraft]$ less /tmp/OZNum.txt 1,19940222,37,43,15,19,40,4,36,8 10,19940426,9,5,13,33,29,12,30,3 100,19960116,32,45,14,34,10,30,26,37 [terrence@igloo webraft]$ cut -f 1-2 -d "," /tmp/OZNum.txt |more 1,19940222 10,19940426 100,19960116 |