Manipulating texts like a spreadsheet: AWK

AWK is a command to filter the output text data like it was a spreadsheet.

$ awk 'command' file

According to awk, the fields of a line in a file are by default separated by a space. After every space a new field starts. To change the separator, use -F 'new-separator' immediately after the command awk.

$ awk -F':' '{print $2,$5}' file
Prints the second and fifth field of every line. Therefore, the second and fifth column. The separator is no longer the space, but ":".

$ command | awk ....
Applies awk to the command output

$ awk '{print $NF}' ...
Prints the last field only

Guide for future implementations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YOZmI-zWok&t=764s